Evangelion - The End and After, Book 2 Resurrection
by The Karolingian
Summary: A new reality threatens Asuka and Rei's burgeoning relationship. Nerv has returned. What can this mean for the new world humanity is building?
1. Chapter 1

**Book 2. Resurrection**

 **The Angel of Free Will.**

Asuka, Rei and Maya stood staring at the logo in mute horror.

"This is..." Asuka began, but she trailed off.

 _No,_ she thought, _it's not possible, this can't possibly be..._

"Nerv," replied Misato, to Asuka's half formed question, "well, Nerv Mk. II, actually. I told you to brace yourselves. Come into my office."

She led them dumbly through the hubbub to a door at the back of the room, located underneath the dreadful logo. The office beyond was spacious, but relatively dark compared to the command room. Misato moved to a large desk and hit a button on its surface. The ambient lighting rose slightly. She began pressing other sections of the desk as they lit up beneath her fingers.

"This was all set up in a very short time. I was contacted soon after Rei returned from... wherever you returned from, Rei. They asked me to come back to work for them. Initially, I told them they could stuff that where... well, you get the idea. The point is, I changed my mind when they showed me what I'm about to show you."

She turned towards them, smiling. At that moment, Asuka crashed into her, forcing her against the wall beside the desk. In a heartbeat she had her hands around Misato's neck.

"Asuka!" gasped Maya.

"Lock that door," Asuka snarled at her. Maya jumped and then did as she was asked.

"Asuka... stop..." choked Misato.

"And let you trick us, like you tricked us into coming here?" replied the German. "No way! How do we get out of here? There must be a secret exit from this office? Tell me!"

"... didn't trick you... asked and you came..."

"You're _lying!_ "

Misato was struggling to reach something on the desk, her fingers flapping for a button. Asuka didn't see it until the last moment.

"Stop that!" she cried, but even as she did, Misato found what she was looking for and slammed a finger down on it.

A projector started up, playing light across one wall. The picture was of security footage taken from inside the refugee sector of Kaibyaku and showed new arrivals being processed before being allowed entrance into the ever growing slums. There were numerous lines of people – men, women and children – all pouring into the city from the rest of Japan, the parts that were far away from simple law and order.

Someone in line was being blocked by a member of the gate security personnel. The figure was dressed in a hooded trench-coat of a deep red/brown colour and would have looked out of place had they not been surrounded by refugees wearing all manner of hotchpotch clothing. As it was, they merely looked a little odd with the hood up covering their features. As the guard continued to berate them, the figure tried to push past, but was knocked back. Then suddenly all hell broke loose. The ground all around the figure tore up, blood and dust flying in all directions.

"Oh, Asuka..." moaned Maya, a hand clasped over her mouth. Asuka's eyes widened and her grip on Misato's throat slackened, to the point where the woman took a whistling, rasping gasp of breath.

On the screen, panicked refugees were running in all directions as security personnel tried to get a grip of the situation. The dust settled, revealing the mangled and dismembered bodies of the guard and several refugees, but of the hooded figure there was no sign. The feed stopped on a still of the carnage.

There was a stunned silence in the room.

"This happened four weeks ago. Just after you turned up looking for Shinji, Rei. The perpetrator escaped – we think into the city, as one of the perimeter fences on the city side of the holding area was slashed apart." Misato looked down at Asuka's now loose grip. "Would you mind?"

Asuka's eyes were wide. She looked from her hands to Misato's face, stunned and trembling.

"Asuka..." said Rei, placing a hand gently on her arm. Asuka released the woman, who rubbed her neck.

"Is he another Angel?" asked Maya.

"Not exactly, no. Not _another_ Angel," replied Misato, pulling her rumpled jacket straight again. She reached for the controls on the desk once more, rewinding the video to a certain point and pausing it.

On the screen was a chaos of blood and torn earth, but emerging barely seen from the tumult, like a fleeting ghost, was something that glowed a thin pink colour, like a writhing cord of light.

"Oh my god," said Maya as the implications dawned on her.

"That's... Shamshel." Whispered Asuka.

Misato nodded.

"We think so."

"The first Angels...?" asked Maya.

Misato dismissed the recording and took Asuka by the shoulders, moving her to a chair and sitting her down.

"I'm sorry, Asuka. Are you okay?"

"Misato!" said Maya, forcefully. "Is it the first Angels?"

Misato glared at her.

"It seems so. And this isn't the only one. We've had similar incidents all over the city. We're struggling to keep it suppressed and keep the population from panicking. Who knows what'll happen to this fragile peace we've created if it gets out that the Angels have returned. Kaibyaku might tear itself apart."

"But how is that possible?" continued Maya. "We destroyed all of the first Angels."

"You saw the mass production Eva Series restart after it had been destroyed by Asuka, perhaps this is the same thing."

"But Shamshel is different now," stated Rei, quietly. "It's human sized."

"Yes," agreed Misato. "We don't know whether it's colonised a human in order to escape detection or if this is an entirely new form based on its perception of our physiology. It may be trying to emulate what it sees as successful in us. It may even simply be a child of the Angel, as we are children of Lilith. It may be all of these things and none of them. I'm afraid all we have are theories."

Maya looked at the screen.

"But if they're back..."

Asuka shook her head violently. Her eyes were wide and terrified.

"Arael..." was all she could manage to say.

"It won't come to that," replied Misato, "I won't let it, Asuka."

"You can't make that promise, major," said Maya.

"No," agreed Rei, her voice soft, but firm, "you can't." And the girl stepped in front of Asuka in a protective gesture that would once have been most unlike the girl.

Misato looked surprised, but then bowed her head.

"You're right, I can't," she admitted. She looked up again, her voice suddenly hard. "But if the Angels really are still alive, if Arael is coming back, do you really want him to do to others what he did to you?"

Asuka didn't answer. She dropped her head into her arms and drew her knees up to her chest, attempting to hide away. Misato sighed.

"I see this is too much for you. I'm sorry Asuka, sometimes I forget you and Rei are still only children. You aren't a slave to Nerv, Asuka, you have your own free will. I'll have someone take you back to your apartment. You can decide what you want to do from there, though it might be an idea to leave Kaibyaku. You too, Maya. I'll have to ask Rei to stay. Whatever's going on may be connected to her return."

Maya looked uncertainly from Rei to Asuka, but Rei simply bowed her head in acquiescence.

"No," said Asuka from within her arms.

"I'm sorry?" said Misato.

"You can't have Rei," said Asuka.

"Asuka –" began Rei.

"No, Rei!" shouted Asuka, lifting her head. Her face was lit up with fury. "I won't let them use you again. I promised I would help you, and if that means staying here to keep Nerv from hurting you, that's what I'll do. And if the Angels are going to come back and attack you, I'll kill them all over again!"

Misato smiled.

"That's more like it."

She looked towards Maya, the question unspoken but conveyed by her look.

"How can you ask children to save the world again?" pleaded Maya. "Even if they agree, the Evas are gone. We have no weapon to use against the Angels."

"That may be true... for the moment. But we aren't as defenceless as we may seem."

Someone was knocking on the door. They could hear muffled voices beyond, calling.

"Can I let them in?" she asked Asuka, "They'll be getting worried."

Asuka stood up and marched to the door. Hitting the lock, the door hissed open.

"Ah, hello Asuka," said the man standing behind the door. He had short dark hair and glasses and was carrying an electronic pad. "I must have missed you when you arrived."

"Lieutenant Hyuga!" gasped the redhead.

"Actually, that's Lieutenant _Colonel_ Hyuga," he replied, pointing to the pips on his uniform shoulder. Then he smiled. "Though I'd rather you called me Makoto, this time."

"Makoto!" cried Maya, looking delighted. She ran to her old colleague and hugged him.

"Good to see you too, Maya," he replied, grinning ruefully when she released him. "It's been a while."

"I didn't even know you came back!"

"I did," he replied, then he looked a little sad. "Aoba, on the other hand..."

Maya's face fell a little.

"Lot's of people didn't make it," she said quietly. He smiled sympathetically, then turned to Misato.

"I'm sorry to interrupt the reunion, Commander, but we believe there's been another incident."

" _Commander_?" asked Asuka, turning an incredulous eye on Misato. "They put _you_ in charge here?"

Misato looked supremely annoyed at this.

"And why wouldn't they?" she arched, then she turned to Makoto. "Was the Angel sighted?"

"No, but a bar was attacked, and there were several fatalities. We're checking the CCTV to see what exactly happened, but given the nature of the damage, I'd say it's almost certain it was an Angel."

"Was it Shamshel again?" asked Misato.

"The damage would seem to be consistent. Oh, and one other thing... the delegation from the UNIDC will be arriving shortly."

Misato sighed and put a hand to her forehead.

"UNIDC?" asked Maya.

"United Nations International Defence Committee," supplied Makoto.

"An international army by another name, and one that I'm none too pleased to have around," said Misato. "It's like the JSDF all over again."

"The Secretary-General insisted," reminded Makoto. "No organisation should have a monopoly on this crisis, everything has to be shared in order to avoid a repeat of last time."

"Yes, yes," she replied, looking tired. "I'd have thought the Secretary-General would have more faith in me, though. Anyway," she turned to survey Asuka, Rei and Maya, "you three must be exhausted, what with rooftop flights and death defying leaps and all. Makoto, could you show them to their rooms so they can rest."

"Our rooms?" asked Asuka. "We already have rooms?"

"Temporary rooms, for the moment, until we can set up something more permanent," replied Misato. She grinned at the look on Asuka's face. "Well, I thought you'd want to at least sleep on it, before joining us."

"You know we haven't agreed to help you, yet?"

The commander's grin widened.

"Yet."

Infuriated, Asuka looked like she was going to yell at Misato some more, but then she seemed to change her mind and instead stomped past Makoto and out of the office. Looking a little lost, Maya and Rei followed.

* * *

The room she had been assigned was modest to say the least, but it was still larger than her apartment bedroom. Everything was minimalistic, decked out in stark whites and steel greys. There was a bed, a chair, several panels in the walls that could be opened for storage (not that Asuka had any clothes with her to store) and a small en-suite with a tiny shower cubicle.

It reminded Asuka of a hospital room. Or a prison cell.

She sat on the bed, staring at the floor, trying to get a hold of her whirling emotions. Maya and Rei had been shown to separate rooms and separate beds. They were nearby, no doubt, but being apart from them was strange. After almost a week constantly in Rei's company, Asuka suddenly felt very alone, and with the prospect of having to face the Angels again hanging over her, alone probably wasn't the best state to be in, given her track record. She could already feel her mind going down some very dark paths.

So when there came a knock on her door, she almost jumped up in relief: it would be Maya come to check on her, most likely, or maybe Rei. Maybe she would want to see Asuka, having spent a week sleeping in the same bed. Maybe she would need to stay in the same room with her in order to feel easy... sleep in the same bed, again...

But it wasn't. When the door opened, Misato stood on the other side, looking down at her.

"Oh, it's you," said Asuka, feeling disappointed.

"Thanks for the heartfelt welcome," said Misato. Asuka was about to snap at her, but she looked up at Misato's face and saw something there that stopped her. The new commander of Nerv was not smiling. She looked serious. Morbidly so.

"Can I come in?"

Asuka stepped back, holding the door open and Misato entered, the door swinging shut behind her.

"Not much to look at, these rooms, are they?" said Misato, looking around. Asuka didn't answer. "We'll have to go and collect your belongings tomorrow," the commander continued. "Then maybe find somewhere more appropriate for you to stay."

"I'm not staying here?" asked Asuka, feeling disinterested.

"Like I said, this is just temporary accommodation. You wouldn't want to stay here long. I know I wouldn't."

"Sure," replied Asuka. Misato sat down on the bed, then turned and stretched out, hands behind her head, staring up at the ceiling.

"They've got me a nice apartment this time, close by. Bigger than before."

"Right," replied Asuka, staring at nothing in particular. Misato tested the mattress.

"Comfortable, at least," she continued.

Asuka couldn't stand it any longer. She pushed her fingers into her fringe and held her forehead in exasperation.

"What is it, Misato? What do you want? Or did you just come to make pointless small talk?"

Misato closed her eyes and heaved a sigh. After a moment of silence, she spoke.

"I'm sorry," she said. "That's what I want to say."

Suddenly, Asuka felt acutely embarrassed by her behaviour. She knew Misato wasn't a bad person – the woman had proved that fact countless times, and here she was doing it again.

"It's something I've needed to say for a while," continued Misato. She clenched her fists on the duvet and gritted her teeth in frustration. "And it's stupid, because none of this is my fault, but I just want to say sorry for your life getting messed up again..."

Asuka didn't feel like telling Misato it was as if her life had only just started again this previous week. It didn't seem appropriate. Besides which, what did it say about her that she needed such strife to make her feel alive?

"I'm not angry at you," she said quietly, staring at the floor. "But, when is this ever going to be over? _Will_ it ever be over, or will there always be more reasons for us to fight, more monsters that want to kill us?"

"I don't know," replied Misato. She sat up and swivelled, bringing her feet down onto the floor at the side of the bed.

"Sit down," she told Asuka, patting the surface of the bed cover next to her. Hesitating, Asuka did as she was instructed and was surprised when Misato put her arms around her and pulled her into a hug.

"I mean it when I say I'm sorry," Misato whispered. "I wish we could have met again under better circumstances. I always wanted to protect you and Shinji and Rei. It might sound strange wanting to protect you and yet asking you to fight and put your lives on the line for everyone else, but there it is. I always thought of the three of you as _mine_ , somehow _–_ my kids – like I was a surrogate parent."

"I guess you were," replied Asuka.

"But I wasn't very good at it," said Misato. She released Asuka and gave her a sad smile. "I truly am sorry."

Asuka sat back, sniffing a little.

"That's okay." With a some effort she managed a smile. "You must have had it as rough as we did."

Misato returned the smile. She put a hand on the top of Asuka's head.

"I'm proud of you, you know?"

Asuka was stunned by those few words. She'd never heard them before.

"I mean it," assured Misato, misreading the look on her face for incredulous disbelief. "What you did, all three of you, over and over... well, I don't think anyone else could have." Suddenly she looked grave. "And even so, it all seems to be starting again. We've all had it rough, before and after third impact. Humanity seems set to make all the same old mistakes over again... Nerv is reactivated, the UN are building an army, and on top of everything, the Angels just won't give us any peace..." She turned to Asuka, a haunted look in her eyes. "But, you know, that's not the worst thing to have happened since I saw you last."

Asuka wasn't sure she wanted to know what could possibly be worse than the return of the Angels. She swallowed, hard, then asked the question.

"Why? What happened?"

Her unease heightened when Misato glared hotly at her, looking Asuka straight in the eye. She could see the pain behind them clearly. Then suddenly, the fire disappeared and she sagged, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. When she spoke again it was as if from the very pits of despair.

"I turned _thirty_..."

Misato dropped her face into her hands and began to bawl, leaving Asuka to struggle against the growing urge to reach up and strangle the commander for the second time that day.

* * *

When Asuka opened her eyes, the room was no longer white. It was red. Something was wrong, but her sleep dulled mind couldn't quite connect the pieces of information her senses were sending her. Somewhere in the facility an alarm was going off. A warning.

 _They're here..._

Suddenly she was fully awake and aware. The sound from the klaxon was all around her. Looking at the clock by her bed, she saw that only a few hours has passed since she had bedded down. It was still the middle of the night.

Well when had the Angels ever been considerate?

Throwing her feet out of the bed, she jumped up and grabbed the clothes she had been wearing the day previously, starting to struggle into them. Even as she did, her door opened. Misato entered.

"What's going on?" she asked the commander.

"The main gate reported an attack. Communications went dead shortly after, we think it's an Angel. Don't bother," she told Asuka, when she saw her attempting to get dressed, "here, put this on."

She handed the girl a one piece garment, it looked gut-churningly familiar.

"What is this?" asked Asuka, holding up the rubbery red suit. "This isn't what I think it is, is it?"

"It's a modified version of your old plugsuit, yes," replied Misato, "don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to pilot Eva 2... Oh, and take this, it'll get you through most of this facility's security."

She handed her an ID card. It had an old photo of Asuka from her Nerv days on it and bore the title 'special unit attached to Nerv Command' under her name. Asuka saw she was holding another suit, this one in shiny white.

"Is that for Rei?" asked Asuka, askance. "You can't be intending to make her fight?"

"She already told me she wanted to," replied Misato. "Hurry up, I'll meet you in the command room."

And with that, she left, leaving Asuka looking on in disbelief.

Shaking herself, she began pulling on the plugsuit replica. It was remarkably similar, except with added connection points, like nerve clusters, all over the suit. Where the previous plug suit had been a bit of a misnomer – well not really a misnomer, after all the entire suit had been one giant connection point – this time the connectors really did look like little plugs.

"What's this for, if there aren't any Evas to pilot?" she muttered to herself as she hit the button that evacuated the air and hugged the fabric to her skin.

Mere minutes later, she was striding down the corridor towards the command room. As she approached, she saw Rei and Maya standing outside the command door.

"There are a lot of military in there," said Maya as Asuka reached them, "some kind of meeting. Misato told us to wait here, while she gets it sorted out."

"To hell with that!" replied Asuka striding past. She hit the entry button, but the door stayed closed.

"The hell?" she asked no one in particular. Then she remembered the card Misato had given her. Taking it out, she thrust it into the slot beneath the button and it glowed green. The doors hissed open and she strode into the command chamber.

Inside the large room things were less chaotic than the previous day. All of the consoles were manned and only a few technicians worked feverishly on certain circuits and wiring. The main screen was on and displayed a schematic of a base of some kind – Asuka presumed the one they were currently standing in.

Misato sat in the command chair, with Makoto stood smartly at her side. She had her hand under her chin and was leaning heavily on it, looking bored. The reason for that became immediately apparent. The room was awash with men wearing military uniforms and carrying guns. Several of the uniformed men were obviously high ranking, judging by their pips. One of them, a general Asuka reckoned, was stood in front of Misato's chair, upbraiding her loudly.

At her entry, the man stopped, and Misato looked up, apparently delighted to see her.

"Asuka!" she exclaimed.

"How did you get in here?" barked the general, then he obviously recognised her because he stopped short.

Misato stood up, turning her back on the general.

"She's here because she has clearance to be here. Say hello to the one who's going to defeat the Angels for you, general."

"What's going on?" asked Asuka.

"Oh, nothing," replied Misato, "just the general here trying to overstep his bounds and take control of my command room."

"Where is the Angel?" asked Asuka.

"We have it contained for now. It's two floors down from the entrance, trapped at a road exchange. Security are suppressing it using industrial lasers used in the construction of this place. But we won't be able to keep it there for long, we don't have a full complement of personnel to send against it."

"Which is why you should turn the operation over to me. My _Daemon_ can take care of the situation you've gotten yourself into," growled the general.

"And as I have said, your unit may have been created to counter these new Angels, but they have only four weeks of anti-Angel training and zero experience of taking them on for real. No one has more experience in combating the Angels than Asuka."

"This _girl_?" spat the general. "She should have died on countless occasions fighting the Angels last time. It's sheer bloody luck she –"

Misato rounded on him suddenly and fiercely.

"And countless others _did_ die fighting the Angels last time, general, so don't you _dare_ call it luck! Asuka, are you ready?"

"Wait!" said Asuka. Misato stopped, looking mildly surprised. "If I'm going to do this, I have some conditions."

"What conditions?" asked the commander.

"Firstly, I want full reinstatement to Nerv and promotion to the highest rank below yours – vice-commander, or whatever that is."

The general behind Misato fairly erupted in indignation, but the commander silenced him by raising her hand.

"Done," she said, "what else?"

"You can't do that," sputtered the general, "you don't have the authority!"

"As I have already pointed out to your superiors," replied Misato, without even looking at the man, "if I'm not given full autonomy in this matter, you can look for another commander to take over the newly fledged Nerv special operations organisation. Good luck finding someone with as much knowledge on the greatest threat mankind has ever faced."

The man fumed and gnashed his teeth, but said nothing further.

"Go on, Asuka," said Misato, when it was clear she wouldn't be losing her job any time soon.

"I want to be in the loop for all discoveries regarding the Angels, their nature, their composition, and I want a veto for any plans or procedures I don't like."

"Done," said Misato, with a smile.

By now the general was almost white with shock and rage.

" _She's just a fifteen year old girl!_ " was all he could manage to whisper.

"Lastly, I want to move into an apartment twice the size of the one I'm in at the moment."

"Oh, is that so?" replied Misato, cocking her head to one side, a sly smile on her face. "Thinking of using your new found authority for personal gain? Well I suppose we can't begrudge you a few comforts after all you've been through."

"I-it's not that!" stammered Asuka. She bowed her head, cheeks suddenly burning. "I thought Rei could... move in... with me..." She raised her head again, glaring at Misato, defiantly. "I don't want her living on her own, like last time!"

Misato's smile widened.

"Well, that's no problem with me, but don't you think you should ask Rei first?"

Asuka looked around at Rei, who was standing in the doorway, a stunned look on her face.

"Rei," said Asuka, "is... is that okay?"

After a moment, the girl nodded. Asuka breathed a sigh of relief, before it struck her that she didn't know what she was feeling relief for.

"Right!" said Misato, "If you and Rei are ready, Asuka, there's an Angel to be defeated!" She turned to the still shocked officer behind her. "General Forster, I will allow your unit to engage the Angel, but only as support to Asuka and Rei, is that clear."

"Yes, ma'am," replied the general, sourly.

"Good," said Misato. And she folded her arms and looked well satisfied. She nodded at Asuka and Rei. "Well then, let's get you two suited up."

"Eh?" asked Asuka, "Aren't we already suited up?"

* * *

The hunched man slipped along the darkened streets. The high collar of his duster coat was buttoned up over his mouth and nose, leaving only glinting eyes, blue on yellow, and pale, almost green tinged cheeks and high a forehead visible below swept back dark hair. Every now and then he would be racked by short barking coughs, which erupted from behind the collar, but he never slowed or stopped during these episodes. They were nearby, he knew. Not on the surface, but below. His brother, his rival, had already found entry. His brother was strong. He might succeed and if his brother succeeded then that would mean his own destruction. He couldn't allow that. _He_ would be the first. He _must_.

But how... _how_...

The man stopped and leant against a rubbish container at the entrance to an alleyway, trying vainly to formulate a plan. A gust of coughs caught him again. The coughs didn't concern him as much as did his new body. The cough was merely a symptom of his physiology trying to adjust. It hadn't accepted the change as readily as his brother's had, but then his brother didn't have to deal with his... unique internal processes.

He coughed again, feeling the sting on his lips.

"Hey mister, are you all right?"

The voice came from deeper into the alleyway, where a drunk had been woken from his sleep. Humans were such distressingly fragile creatures, so prone to weakness. He couldn't understand how they had managed to defeat him and his brethren before the turmoil of third impact. They were so weak, they even tried to kill themselves.

"Hey, you don't look so good, mister. You sick or something?"

The drunk was staggering towards him, now. He silenced the man without thinking, so focussed was he on unfolding events. Things were changing beneath him. His brother had stopped moving and the children were advancing. Soon they would meet. Time was running out.

* * *

"What is this?" asked Asuka.

She and Rei stood in the hangar like room again, along with Misato, General Forster and his retinue. They were faced by six soldiers, who were lined up in front of a command vehicle, wearing getup that Asuka and Rei had never seen before, even with their long association with various armed forces.

"This – _girl –_ is _Daemon_. They're an elite and totally unique fighting force, readily able to take on anything that the Angels might throw at us."

Misato tutted and looked irritated at the general's use of the word 'girl'.

"They're battle suits," she clarified.

Asuka looked along the line of soldiers. Four of them were wearing what seemed to be suits of armour, like combat gear, though more sculpted, thicker, but apparently just as flexible and mobile. The other two were in extremely bulky versions of the former, that obviously involved robotics and which lifted the occupants two or three feet higher than their squad-mates. They also carried much heavier armament; where the lighter soldiers carried automatic rifles, the heavies toted what looked like mini-guns. All of them were coloured in city camouflage, mottled dark and light greys.

"The concept was first put forward shortly after the Matarael attack, to allow flexible deployment of forces in enclosed environments, but wasn't put into serious development until after Tabris's arrival, when Nerv realised the Angels might choose human sized forms and engagement with an Eva would be unrealistic."

Asuka was never involved with Tabris, she had been catatonic at the time of his arrival, but after instrumentality she knew the deep pain Shinji had felt about the death of the final Angel.

"But there were no more Angels after Tabris," said Rei.

"True," replied Misato, "but not all of Nerv's branches were privy to the information in the dead sea scrolls, so certain operations continued right up until instrumentality."

"We'll be fighting wearing these?" asked Rei.

"Not exactly. These were developed in North America. Nerv Japan have our own versions."

Asuka turned to Misato, furious.

"I don't care what armour you give us, this won't be enough to stop an Angel's weaponry. You're marching us to our deaths!"

"Don't be so sure," replied Misato, coolly. She raised a hand in signal to the driver of the command vehicle. To their astonishment, one whole side of the vehicle opened up, swinging smoothly upwards. Two human shaped receptacles that reminded Asuka horribly of the entry plug seat glided forward from the side.

Rei was already stepping towards them without a word.

"O-oi, Rei!" stuttered Asuka.

"Yours is the one on the left, Rei," said Misato, also stepping past Asuka.

"I understand," replied Rei dutifully, as she hoisted herself up into the seat. Misato turned her head.

"You too, Asuka," she prompted.

"Now wait just a second –" started Asuka, then she stopped in astonishment. An inner section of the raised side of the vehicle swung down, encapsulating Rei in a steel cocoon. Various parts whirred and rotated and locked into place. Then, after a pause in which various clanks and whooshes sounded from the pod, the section hissed and rose once more, revealing Rei now encased from head to foot and heel to fingertip in armour of pure white, worked through with the same black detailing as her plug suit. The armour was sleek, so sleek it hardly looked like armour at all. Some kind of power pack sprouted wing-like antenna from her back and an open faced helmet with interior lit visor covered her head. Just a few strands of her blue hair were visible from inside, framing her face.

Asuka was stunned.

"What the...?"

Rei lifted a hand, flexing it and studying the movement.

"Pure white?" asked one of the soldiers, a big guy with sandy hair and beard, "No camo? Paint a target on her, why don't you?"

"Well look on the bright side, Jake, at least we'll be able to tell which one she is," said a female with short black hair, dark eyes and a scar along her jaw. "You know, so we know who to hide behind."

The sarcasm dripped from her voice, making Asuka clench her jaw in annoyance. She glared at the woman, who merely smirked in reply.

"You too, Asuka," repeated Misato.

"How is that supposed to protect us?" Asuka shot back at the commander. "The armour's like paper, and anyway I've never seen any armour that could stand up to an Angel's weaponry!"

"True, but the armour isn't the only thing that'll protect you," replied Misato, tersely. "See those things that look like little wings? That's an amplification device that allows you to project a limited AT field."

"An AT field?" replied Asuka, aghast. Misato nodded.

The ground rumbled as a crashing noise came from somewhere above, travelling through the concrete room. A voice crackled over a communication link.

"Commander, the Angel is moving again," said Makoto.

"I thought you said security had it pinned down," replied Misato.

"They did," came the reply, "but the Angel used its whips to break through the floor. It's on its way down to you."

Misato turned to Asuka, an alarmed look in her eye.

"Asuka, hurry!"

The German gritted her teeth, nodded and, uttering a deluge of curses in her native tongue, climbed into the second auto-armourer. As she sat down, a horrific crash resounded through the hangar-like room. Part of the ceiling thundered to the floor in a tumult of crushed stone and dust.

As the auto-armourer swung closed, Asuka just had time to see the anti-Angel unit, Daemon, scatter in all directions and Misato move around the back of the command vehicle. Then she was entombed in blackness, which suddenly blazed with multi-coloured light, sprayed across her from a multitude of sources she couldn't make out. She felt herself squeezed, as though she were being vacuum packed, and for a moment she couldn't move a muscle. Then a helmet was over her head and a HUD flashed in front of her face. Outside, she could already hear the judder of automatic fire, punctuated by crashes that rocked the command vehicle.

A machine voice spoke from everywhere and nowhere.

"Voice ident required."

"Hurry up, you stupid machine!" yelled Asuka. A light blinked in her visor then the words 'Diagnostic Initiated' played across the glass, followed by the legend 'Initialization Complete. Welcome Asuka Langley Sohryu.'

With that, the lights went out. The locks hissed in release and the auto-armourer opened onto chaos.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Angel of the Morning.**

If the Angel had any concept of cursing, it would have spat a stream. His brother had made contact and he had yet to even find entrance. Around the city, he could feel the accumulating anguish of his siblings, but none were as close as he was. He was so near he could almost feel the terrified pulses of the combatants. He could almost taste their fear.

Yet it would all be for nothing.

He released what had been the drunk, dropping the charred remains to the alley floor, where they hissed and smoked in the puddled gloom. Re-buttoning the collar that covered his mouth and nose, he regarded the twisted form at his feet. So fragile, these humans, and yet they had killed him once before. How it was he came to face them again, he couldn't say for sure. He had vague memories of a feeling of one-ness, of being joined to the various warring states and natures and emotions of his brethren, then of a separation and a feeling of being different, new. Then he was in the city, surrounded by the creatures who had stood in the way of his destiny and who he had tried to destroy. He had reached out like a newborn, fearful and crying, and that was when he had felt it. The presence of a parent, one he had thought lost. He had known then what he must do.

But now his weeks of hiding and searching, of trying to blend in with an enemy whose destruction he had so very nearly wrought and whose savage retort had resulted in his death, had very nearly come to nothing.

He slammed a fist against a wall, causing it to crack savagely, as another gale of coughs raced through him.

It felt strange performing such an action. Anger was not an emotion with which he was familiar, but then neither was fear and fear was what was presently driving him. He must find a way in. He _must_.

* * *

The auto-armourer opened on a scene of burgeoning chaos. Though only a small hole had been punched through the curved concrete roof by the Angel's arrival, much of the surrounding ceiling had collapsed, leaving a wide crater. Miraculously, the falling masonry had missed the command vehicle and apparently the members of Daemon had escaped unharmed, but now the unit were engaging the Angel, hiding behind the larger pieces of crushed stone the monster had brought down. Lines of fire zigzagged across the room in withering hails of hot metal.

And in the centre of this maelstrom was the Angel, a hooded figure wielding bright whips of pale pink light that snickered through the air, slicing boulders of fallen concrete like cheese. Bullets spat from its AT field in flashes of amber light. As she watched, she saw a flash of white as Rei charged the Angel, her own rifle pulsing in her hands as it hurled shot after shot at Shamshel.

 _She never had much subtlety,_ Asuka thought with some chagrin, though her companion's charge appeared effective as the Angel reeled away from her. Then, suddenly, a whip flashed out and wrapped itself around the gun. The weapon came apart in a hail of diced metal and exploding ammunition. Rei was hurled backwards several feet, coming to rest against a chunk of concrete. Shamshel turned on her.

"No!" yelled Asuka, struggling into a sitting position and grabbing the rifle which whirred out of the capsule next to her right hand. She aimed and fired in a split second and the Angel staggered, its attention diverted from Rei.

A whip slashed through the air, throwing a huge chunk of rock at the command vehicle. It slammed into the side, rocking the vehicle back as Asuka struggled out of the seat. For a moment she thought the command vehicle would roll right over, crushing her before she could get out, but then it righted itself, its massive wheels crashing back to the ground. Asuka rolled free, looking up in time to see another whip arcing her way. There was no time to dodge, all she could do was throw her arm up, then she was hurled bodily against the side of the command vehicle with a level of force that would have been bone-crunching had she been unarmoured. The rifle skittered away across the floor. Winded, she looked up to see the Angel advancing on her with unnatural speed, face hidden amidst the darkness of its hood. Automatic fire splattered harmlessly against overlapping AT fields that seemed to surrounded the creature, offering no chink or gap to exploit. It raised its arm, to bring a whip slashing down on Asuka.

And then Rei was there, expanding an AT field of her own. She stood in front of Asuka, arms crossed against the Angel's onslaught. The German saw the shredded remains of the assault rifle hanging from its strap at Rei's side. She was near defenceless as the Angel began lashing down again and again, successive strikes driving the girl into the ground.

"Rei!" screamed Asuka.

"Asuka, your progressive knife!" came Misato's voice over her comm link. There was a knife at her belt, but there was also one at Rei's. Springing forward, Asuka lunged past her comrade, snagging the knife as she went. With a scream of anger, she plunged the knife into the chest of the Angel – only to see it lodge in another AT field. The Angel gathered its whips to slash at her again, but she expanded her own AT field to its limit, throwing Shamshel away from her like a paper kite in a strong wind.

The Angel flew through the air, hood flying free, and landed thirty feet away in a spray of dust and debris. Immediately, Daemon were upon it, advancing from all sides with immaculately directed crossfire. The two heavies stepped right up to the downed Angel and, with their miniguns still spitting continuously, one lifted a heavy servo-assisted foot and brought it crashing down on Shamshel's chest.

"We have it!" Asuka heard Forster roar over the link. From the corner of her eye, she saw the man clamber upon a boulder, to stand, triumphant, at its pinnacle. But even as he spoke, she saw he was wrong.

A tendril of energy wrapped itself around the leg of the heavy that was attempting to crush the Angel, lifting the soldier from the ground. As the man rose into the air, a second tendril snaked about the body of his comrade and both heavies were lifted toward the curved ceiling, as though they weighed nothing at all. It was testament to the construction of the armoured suits that they withstood the ethereal energies ravaging them – the armour blistered but held its cohesion, where previously the whips had sliced through concrete as if it wasn't there – however, even the heavy armour wasn't enough to withstand the pressure Shamshel brought to bear, as the light whip was tightened relentlessly about it. With a shriek of tortured metal the second heavy's armour collapsed in a brief torrent of blood.

In a surge of stone and dust, Shamshel rose from the debris scattered floor and hurled the mangled heap of metal and flesh at another member of Daemon, the burly, sandy-haired man called Jake, as he charged forward. The charging soldier was caught head on, the massive hunk of twisted metal crushing him against the floor and caving in his chest, killing him instantly.

An eldritch shriek erupted from the monster at the centre of the carnage. Whether it was a cry of triumph or a howl of anger, Asuka couldn't be sure, but in that moment, a strange clarity invaded her senses. She saw her adversary clearly for the first time.

Shamshel was a nightmare given form. With its hood drawn back, Asuka was able to look upon what lay beneath. The Angel was almost human – almost – but it was that nearness that made its visage all the more horrifying. Its head was obviously that of a man, complete with sparse hair across the back, but in place of its eyes were two perfect circles, black in white, smoothing off any of the usual facial architecture with an expressionlessness that chilled. They were eyes, but not eyes, knowing and yet utterly blank. Its mouth was worse, a collection of bony mandibles, like skeletal fingers, that constantly worked in the space where a chin would normally have been.

At the sight of her comrades being killed in such casual fashion, the female with the scar screamed and danced forward, only to be swatted aside by the whip of light. She flew through the air and impacted against a rough boulder, before dropping to the ground, where she lay, unmoving.

Asuka struggled to her feet and found Rei at her side.

"Asuka, we have to stop it," Rei told her, her voice urgent. Asuka looked annoyed.

"I know that!" she snapped. "Can you hold it?"

Rei nodded in reply.

"Good," said Asuka, "we'll do it like we did with Sahaquiel. You hold it, I'll kill it!"

Shamshel was now swinging the screaming heavy through the air. Minigun fire spat in all directions, sparking off the command vehicle and caroming about the walls and strewn floor. The vehicle rocked on its hinges as heavy munitions chewed up its side and top armour and, for a moment, Asuka was worried for Misato's safety. Then the Angel had wrapped its other tentacle around the soldier and with a sickening spray of blood, pulled him limb from limb. The minigun was silenced.

Asuka's stomach turned. She had experienced some horrific moments in her life, her own death not least among them, and had somehow come through, but those were things she thought she had left behind, almost as though they belonged to someone else; the Asuka who had existed before third impact. Now, here she was, faced with such horror again, and the past came flooding back. Her senses heightened as the blood pumped in her head and the scene began to appear surreal. There were now only two of the six members of Daemon still mobile and one was being dragged, bleeding from a bullet puncture, away from the carnage by the other, who appeared, as yet, uninjured. Neither would be of any further help. Shamshel seemed less interested in them than in Asuka and Rei as it turned those horrible blank, flat eyes upon them. She felt Rei take the progressive knife from her hands, then with those same hands she took her own from her belt. They felt disconnected from her, somehow absent. She knew what must surely come next and tried to steel herself for the Angel's spring.

It never came. Something struck Shamshel from the side, disappearing in a brief flare as the AT field dissembled it in mid flight. Three further pitiful flares bloomed, doing no damage, but even so diverting the Angel's attention.

Across the room, General Forster stood upon a boulder of concrete and was firing his side-arm, a service pistol, at the Angel. His face was pale and oddly slack, but his eyes blazed with a mindless rage. On the ground about his perch, his staff officers were scattered in smears of blood, some sliced apart, others mutilated by automatic fire. All of them dead. Shamshel turned again, and Asuka saw that the general was also dead, he simply didn't realise it. Even as Rei launched herself forward, Asuka froze. Two strides was all it would take for Shamshel to come into range of the general, then a wicked slash would eviscerate him, crush his head, perhaps even chop him in two. It would be another horror to add to those already piled up around her, another terrifying memory to add to the ghosts that surged from the past to haunt her again.

Then perhaps she would also die, maybe it would even be a merciful relief...

Two strides. Shamshel took one, its whips curling high up into the air. Asuka could do nothing but watch. It took the second step and the whips or light came down.

There was a scream.

Rei was there. Impossibly, she had made it in front of the general in time. The whips had caught her and wrapped around her forearms. The thin armour absorbed the heat of contact with the whip and held, though the pain was evident on the young girl's face. Shamshel, however, merely increased the pressure. Rei still held the progressive knife in her right hand, but it was useless to her, bound by the whips as she was. The white armour began to creak, and Rei cried out once again.

And Asuka moved.

It wasn't out of fear for herself, nor for the safety of the general, or for Daemon, or even for Misato. Neither to save the world, nor to protect its people. She moved not to defeat the Angel, but at the insistence of that cry. She moved to protect Rei.

As she ran forward, she heard Misato's voice in her ear.

"The knife, Asuka, hit the switch on the knife!"

She leapt into the air, raising it over her head, even as she heeded her commander's voice, then brought it down in a ferocious slash.

The progressive knife bloomed, a sheet of energy erupting from the hilt, like an AT field, though shaped like a katana and infinitely sharp. This ethereal blade connected with the whips – then carried on through, sparking off the ground in a spray of light.

Shamshel suddenly reeled back, an unearthly scream bubbling from whatever passed for its throat. The whips about Rei's forearms arms dimmed and dropped to the ground, releasing her. Rei stumbled backwards into the general, who was still trying to fire his empty pistol at the Angel, and they both fell from the boulder.

In confusion, Asuka looked up, sure that the Angel was now able to provide a killing blow and that she would be unable to block it in time. Instead, Shamshel continued to back away, stubby ends of the shortened light whips writhing. Then suddenly it launched itself upwards, through the hole in the ceiling and out of sight.

The hangar room, a frenetic hive of activity a moment before, was suddenly plunged into near silence. Unsteadily, Asuka got to her feet and stumbled to the edge of the boulder. Looking down at Rei she found the pilot taking her feet. The blue haired girl looked up at her.

"You hold it, I'll defeat it," said Asuka, and she grinned weakly. Rei nodded obediently. Then she smiled.

* * *

The rear hatch whirred open and Misato stepped out of the command vehicle.

"Makoto?" she snapped. His voice came loud and clear over the comm net.

"It's tunnelling straight up, too fast for us to intercept. Our best estimate is that it'll break surface in a little under two minutes, then we'll have little chance of catching it.

Misato tutted in annoyance.

"Making a run for it." She turned and surveyed the carnage. "Well, I suppose this will do as a start."

"It could have been worse," agreed Makoto.

"We could all be dead," finished Misato, grimly.

She stepped forward at a brisk pace towards the lone figure standing atop a large boulder. As she walked she spotted two of the members of Daemon, one supporting the other. Apparently the female had survived as well, for she was sitting on a rock, some distance away, her head in her hands.

Of the other three members of Daemon, only mangled bodies and blood remained. The same could be said for Forster's command staff.

"Makoto, are the medics on the way?" she muttered.

"Yes, ma'am," replied Makoto. "They should be arriving any second."

As if on cue, three teams of medics burst into the vehicle hangar. They swiftly made their way towards the various survivors. Misato spared them barely a glance as she came to a halt in front of Asuka. The redhead turned and looked down at her, a strange, slightly vacant, look in her eye.

"Misato."

Her voice was flat.

"Where's Rei?" asked Misato. Asuka indicated to the other side of the rock. The girl appeared supporting the general, who looked to be in shock, and was therefore, mercifully, silent. Misato thought about a cutting remark, then thought better of it. Too many people had just died. Besides, anything she might have considered saying sounded petty in her head even as she thought of them. Looking at the general, Misato just felt tired. She turned back instead to Asuka and Rei.

"You did well," she told them, "but this is far from over. I'm afraid we'll have to call on you both to defend Nerv and this city again."

Asuka sighed and jumped lightly down from the boulder.

"Well, of course. Who else is going to do it?"

Misato smiled ruefully.

"We'll have to get you both back into training, things have changed and the way we respond will have to change as well. For the moment, let's get you both checked out in the infirmary."

* * *

Shamshel staggered away from the hole in the ground from which it had just climbed, his near human body struggling to contain the damage that had been done to him.

 _To have come so close, so close..._

Now it might all be for nothing. His body was struggling to hold itself together, much of his life energy was invested in his whips and that Nerv puppy had severed them, unwittingly doing more damage to Shamshel than she could have realised. Add to that a near human body, with near human frailties, frailties that were largely hidden by the creature's AT field, something that he now had trouble producing, and things did not look good. He had to find somewhere to hide, to try to recover and hope that, in the meantime, his siblings did not succeed where he had failed.

Looking around, Shamshel saw he had emerged into an alleyway dark with rain. There were no humans about. Perhaps his luck had turned?

Pulling up his wide red hood and staggering along the alleyway, he searched for a doorway, or bolt-hole into which he could find entry and refuge. Shamshel almost tripped over an object lying on the floor in a pitiful bundle of black rags. Looking down, he saw it was a human, or rather, what had once been a human. What little remained of the figure was twisted, its scraps of flesh and exposed bone blackened and malformed, as though the human had been both burned and melted. It still steamed, as if it had been submerged in boiling water.

It wasn't water that caused it to steam, however. Shamshel knew exactly what it was.

Two sharp prongs burst from his chest. Transfixed, Shamshel looked down as they withdrew, spraying red ichor across the alley. Shamshel dropped to the damp floor, as more blood surged from his many-mandible-d mouth and pattered to the ground.

 _He had been so close..._

There was the sound of coughing from behind him. With some effort, Shamshel turned, rolling over in the puddles of water that choked the alley floor. Another figure loomed above him, a shadow in the rain. Though no contact had ever been made between them, Shamshel knew instinctively that it was his brother. Four great segmented appendages sprouted from the man's back, beneath the long duster coat, his skin was pale, unhealthy looking, with drooping yellowed eyes that glinted alien antipathy. The four long limbs swept down, plucking Shamshel off the ground and lifting him upwards until they were face to face. Weakly, Shamshel tried to lift the stubs of his whips, to wrap them around his brother's head, but Matarael's human arms gripped them, unheeding of the coruscating energy, and tore them from Shamshel's body in further sprays of blood.

Unfeeling now, Shamshel's blank eyes stared up into the nightmare visage that was his brother. The high collar of the duster coat had been unbuttoned, revealing a gaping maw of a mouth, row upon row of tiny needle sharp teeth that lined a darker tunnel. It was from this tunnel that Shamshel's end came.

Matarael coughed forth the stinking fluid that finished the weakened Angel, the fiercely corrosive liquid first dissolving his head, then his shoulders, then burrowing on into his core, blasting it apart as his final energies detonated in a percussive _whump_ that blew charred bits of the Angel across the alleyway. A brief flash of light in the shape of a cross illuminated the darkened space, then what tattered remnants of Shamshel that Matarael still held were dropped unceremoniously to the ground.

* * *

Matarael stepped away from what had been his brother, moving towards the hole in the concrete of the alley floor. Mere moments before, the Angel had been on the brink of despair, but now, the very cause of that despair had provided him with his own opportunity. Suddenly the tables were turned and he, not his siblings, would find entry.

 _And yet..._

And yet, things had not gone well for Shamshel, underground – and Shamshel had been strong. He would not make the same mistakes as his brother. He would take his time and wait for the optimal moment to strike. Concealing his arms once more beneath his duster, and buttoning the collar over his nightmarish mouth, Matarael dropped into the hole.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Angel of Rain.**

"All your vitals appear normal. None of your cuts and scrapes are particularly bad, and you're not showing signs of concussion... though I'd like to keep you in the infirmary for the night, just to be safe."

The woman appeared to be in her early thirties, with dark brown hair and a dusting of freckles over her nose. They looked nothing alike, yet something about her reminded Asuka of Ritsuko. It was an unsettling association in context.

"Would you be okay with that, Miss Sohryuu?"

Asuka glanced around the infirmary, then across at the other end of the room where the survivors of Daemon were. A curtain had been put up around the most severely injured of the trio, as Nerv medical staff feverishly attempted to save the man's life. He had been struck by three minigun bullets. The uninjured member of Daemon stood near the curtain, fists clenching and unclenching. There was blood on the floor.

Another medic was attending to the last of Daemon, the female with the sarcastic streak. Sitting on a bed, staring at the floor as the medic saw to her hurts, she didn't look quite so sarcastic. Looking at her, Asuka felt tired.

"Miss Sohryuu?"

Asuka looked up at the doctor.

"I just want to sleep. I don't think I can do that here."

"Of course, we can provide a private room, away from..."

The doctor glanced towards the other end of the bay where sounds of frenzied activity issued from behind the curtain. Asuka looked at the doctor's name badge. _Helen Coulsen_... Not Japanese, obviously, though she spoke the language well.

"Are you in charge here?" she asked. The woman shook her head.

"No, that would be Doctor Ito. He's the one heading the team attending to your friend." She nodded towards the curtain. "I suppose you could say I'm his second in command."

Asuka gritted her teeth.

"Were you in Nerv... before...?" The woman nodded. "Did you know..."

Coulsen smiled gently.

"Doctor Ritsuko? Not personally. I was in one of her departments but I didn't get to associate with her much. I was fairly junior back then, just another doctor in the medical facility, but she was kind of a hero to all of us."

Asuka stood up.

"And look where heroes took us..." she muttered. "Look, Doctor Coulsen –"

"Helen, please," the woman cut in.

"...Helen. I just want to find Rei and get out of here. Do you know where they took her?"

Coulsen nodded.

"She's in an examination room down the hall. Room 4b."

"Thankyou," said Asuka and she moved past the doctor to the entrance. As the door hissed open, she came face to face with Rei. Maya stood behind the blue haired girl.

"Rei!" exclaimed Asuka. "Are you okay?"

The younger girl nodded.

"I received no serious injuries."

Asuka grabbed her hand and with a quiet, "Come on," marched out of the room and down the corridor. They were half way back to their rooms before Asuka realised Maya was following them.

"What do you want, Maya?" snapped Asuka. Maya looked upset by Asuka's tone.

"This isn't my fault, Asuka," she told the redhead. "I've been on your side this whole time."

Asuka released Rei's hand and took a deep breath, calming herself.

"I'm sorry," she said after a pause. "I know you're not to blame Maya. What did you want to say."

"What are we going to do?"

Asuka looked from Maya to Rei and back again.

"What can we do?" she asked. "The Angels are back."

"We don't know that for certain," replied Maya, "it might just be Shamshel." She took a step forward and looked directly into Asuka's eyes, her voice lowered. "We can still run."

It was an attractive idea, even now, but, deep down, Asuka knew it was no longer possible.

"And when the Angels attack? Who'll stop them? Even if it's just Shamshel, conventional troops and weapons are useless, we've already seen that. Besides, Misato has already asked me to stay and I've said yes."

Maya stepped back again.

"Then I suppose I'll do the same. Commander Katsuragi has offered me the rank of chief technician, and full authority over the technical department and the new generation supercomputer."

Both Asuka and Rei looked surprised at this.

"The Magi?" asked Asuka. "Have they rebuilt it?"

Maya shook her head.

"No, this system is based on my own work. Mine and Doctor Ritsuko's... I started working on theoretical maps after the incident with Iruel. I wanted to counter the threat of hacking from within Nerv that the the eleventh Angel posed. When I showed my work to Ritsuko, she told me to carry it on with her assistance, but it never got beyond the planning stage. Apparently, this new Nerv found our preliminary work and expanded on it, creating a scaled back version of the old system, less processing power, but more safeguards should things go wrong. They're calling it Disciple, as the technology follows on from the Magi supercomputers... that and the hardware is split into twelve rather than three."

"Haven't they tired of that mythology yet?" sighed Asuka.

"Apparently not," replied Maya. She looked conflicted, then she suddenly seized Asuka's hand in one of hers and Rei's hand in the other. She joined them all together. "You know I won't use guns," she told the surprised pair, "I won't kill. But I will fight, in my own way, and I'll do whatever it takes to protect both of you. You both deserve to be happy, more than anyone I know."

Asuka blushed fiercely and glanced at Rei, who was looking back at her. Then she looked at where their hands were joined, before finally turning her eyes back to Maya's earnest face.

"Are you stupid?"

* * *

Misato smiled and switched off the security feed at her terminal. The trio holding hands disappeared behind the static grey of an inert monitor.

"They seem to be getting on well," said Makoto who stood at her side, clipboard in hand.

"Thankfully," agreed Misato, looking up. "It seems even the end of the world wasn't enough to break them. Then again, it's difficult to break what was already broken..."

"Are you talking about them, or us?" asked Makoto. Misato smirked at him.

"You show me one person at Nerv that wasn't damaged in some way," she told him, "and I'll call you a liar. But that's why we're working now. We're working to put things back together."

"The Angels seem to have other ideas about that," replied Makoto, grimly. He handed Misato the clipboard. On it was a short report and several pictures. "We think we've found Shamshel."

"That was quick," replied Misato. She studied the pictures, which appeared to be of a rain swept alleyway and some kind of humanoid remains. The implications dawned on her. "This is..."

"No known human weapon can do that to an Angel," Makoto told her.

"Another Angel... It looks like it's been burned."

"Or given an acid bath," replied Makoto. "There were human remains nearby, a homeless man, we think. Same state. Worse actually."

"Acid suggests..."

"Matarael," nodded Makoto. "There's more. These remains were found very close to where Shamshel broke surface. The Angel didn't get far before it was picked off. We've blocked the hole, but in my view..."

"That's like shutting the door after the horse has bolted."

"Or closing the pen once the wolf is inside."

Misato looked at him hard. Then she handed him the clipboard.

"Organise patrols, make it a priority, but make sure our personnel know not to engage the Angel unless otherwise stated," said Misato. "And keep Asuka and Rei on standby."

Makoto nodded.

"And Daemon?"

"For the moment, we'll have to consider Daemon as inactive."

Her second in command looked at his notes.

"You should know, Commander, the bar incident... We weren't able to get there before the police this time. I've sent a clean-up team, but I'm afraid the damage has probably already been done."

Misato closed her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. Another headache...

* * *

Sitting in his office, Koga heaved a sigh as he looked over the reports that were rapidly piling up on his desk. Things were apparently going to hell. What had started with two sightings of the first child had quickly escalated to multiple homicides, various property damage and a spreading panic amongst the local population.

A bar had been torn up, it looked like a whirlwind had hit it from the inside, and the patrons hadn't escaped the fury of its passing. Stepping into that room had been like stepping into a horror flick, such was the catastrophe and confusion he had witnessed. There were no bodies, only _pieces_. Hunks of flesh that defied conventional identification. DNA testing had to be undertaken just to know who had died, and even then it was nearly impossible to be sure everyone had been accounted for.

Koga shuddered at the memory.

And that hadn't been where it had ended. After drawing a blank at Miss Ibuki's apartment, they had tried Asuka's last known address, only to find another dead body on the doorstep and the apartment ransacked. There was no sign of the German.

Outside his office window, the continuing rain crackled insistently against the glass. It had hardly let up since this had all started. Or at least since the incident with the shop assistant.

"Got an ID on the apartment body," Suzuki told him, sitting down beside his desk, notes in hand. "Hiro Kawaguchi, construction worker. Works at the same construction company as one Asuka Langley Sohryu. So that might explain why he was at her apartment."

"Maybe..." said Koga.

"Cause of death: extreme loss of blood due to severing of right hand. No other visible injuries."

"Did they find the hand?" asked Koga.

"Oh, yes, you're going to love this," said Suzuki, flipping through his notes, "DNA testing showed it matched a hand at the bar massacre. There's also a trail of blood leading most of the way to Miss Sohryu's apartment that even this rain couldn't entirely wash away."

"So whatever happened, he had his hand chopped off and then he was dragged through the streets of Kaibyaku so he could die at the apartment. God."

"Could it have been self inflicted?" asked Suzuki. "Could he have made his own way?"

"I don't think so," replied Koga. "There wasn't much blood at the apartment, so Kawaguchi must have been bleeding out on the journey. It's unlikely he would have made it without some kind of assistance..."

Koga picked up the photo of the bar interior. It was difficult to make out anything amidst the debris. The floor and walls were soaked in blood and choked with dust.

"I hate to say it, but I don't think a human could have done all this..."

"You think it was Rei?" asked Suzuki. Koga didn't reply. "Have you contacted Naoko-san?"

Koga threw down the photo and sighed again, sitting back in his chair.

"No reply at her apartment. The acquaintance you left her with says Naoko didn't stay long before returning home.

There was a commotion from outside Koga's office and the door swung abruptly open. Two men in suits and dark glasses walked in. They looked remarkably similar, both fairly young, in their late twenties or early thirties, Koga thought, with solid builds under their identical dark suits. Behind them, the desk clerk danced from foot to foot, looking upset.

"I tried to stop them," he told Koga. "They wouldn't listen."

"It's okay Shinichi, get back to your desk, we'll handle this."

"We're from the Housing Committee," said the first suit without preamble. He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a badge. "We're here to collect all the evidence you have on an incident that occurred at a bar in the business sector."

Koga stood up at the same time as Suzuki. They exchanged a quick, uneasy glance.

"As far as I'm aware the Housing Committee has no degree of authority over the police," said Koga. "And why should they need evidence on a multiple homicide?"

"We're acting with the authority of the central council, Captain," replied the man. And here he produced a document, handing it to Koga. Koga glanced down at the proffered paper and then dismissed it.

"That's a piece of paper."

"It is the full authority of the council, detective."

"I wasn't aware the council had the authority to give people bits of paper," replied Koga. Behind him, Suzuki snorted. The suit merely regarded him coolly from behind his dark glasses. Koga stared straight back. "I suggest you return to your committee with my apologies. I'm not going to offer up evidence on an ongoing murder investigation."

"Are we going to have a problem, Captain?" asked the suit, his voice dangerously quiet.

"Now, hang on," began Suzuki angrily, starting forward, but Koga stopped him with a raised hand. He fervently hoped whatever his partner had done before third impact it had prepared him to back up his combative outburst, because Koga wasn't as fit as he had once been and these two men were large and looked like they knew how to handle themselves. Still, he couldn't back down now.

"If you intend to take our evidence, young man, then you'll have to do it with me dead or unconscious, because otherwise you're not taking another step here."

The suit smiled a thin smile, then made to make that step. Koga braced himself and sensed Suzuki do the same.

"There'll be no need for that," said another voice from outside the office.

An old man wearing an immaculately pressed charcoal suit and tie entered the room. He was well dressed and smart, but his face was weary and lined, his advanced age apparent in his balding head and careful bearing. Dark bags hung under his slightly rheumy eyes and he walked with a slight stoop. Nevertheless, the man immediately commanded attention and the force of his personality shone through his aged appearance.

"Superintendent Inoguchi!" exclaimed Koga, straightening. "These men are attempting–"

"I know what they are attempting Saburou," interrupted the senior officer. "I am afraid their authority is genuine. I have already agreed the transfer of all the material you have gathered regarding the Rei case." He shot an angry glare at the two suits. "Though I am a bit disturbed that you people would be so indelicate as to come into my station and immediately begin throwing your weight around. I have half a mind to go back on my promise to your boss."

The man in dark glasses visibly relaxed and, after a moment, bowed in apology to Inoguchi. The older man accepted it with a nod.

"You can't give away all of our evidence, Sir," said Kuro, "we're in the middle of an investigation!"

"I can do whatever I feel is best for this station and this city, Sergeant," Inoguchi told him sternly. "I am the Senior Superintendent and you will have to get used to following my decisions if you want to be a detective here."

Kuro looked slightly cowed.

"What about our investigation?" asked Koga, looking from the men to the Superintendent. He had to force down his anger. He hadn't had to suffer this kind of manoeuvring since before third impact. He quashed his feelings of frustration with his immense respect for Inoguchi. The old man had rarely misstepped in the past, even when faced with the massive power blocs that had bumped up against one another in the time of the Angels.

"I understand the council will be beginning its own investigation."

"I wasn't aware they had an investigative branch," replied Koga, his voice tight. Inoguchi merely looked away. The second suit stepped forward, holding a large box.

"If you wouldn't mind, Captain," he said. Koga regarded him, then nodded to his desk.

"It's all on there," he told the man stiffly, reluctant to give them any help at all. The suit nodded and they both pushed past and started transferring files into the box. They collected all of the witness statements, all of the files from the two cases, all of the photos and CCTV stills. They even ejected the data disks from the monitors, and closed and boxed Koga's laptop. Suzuki started to protest at this, but Koga silenced him with a gesture. All the while the two men worked, Koga watched Inoguchi. The old man refused to look at him.

"That should be everything," said the second suit, and with that the two men pushed past once more. The first suit exited without a backwards glance, though the second paused in the doorway.

"Thank you for your cooperation," he told the room, without a hint of irony in his voice. Nobody responded.

When the men had gone, Suzuki nearly exploded.

"What the hell was that? What are we even doing in this station? What was the point of starting up again after third impact if we're going to be ridden all over by –"

Koga interrupted the man.

"Suzuki! I need something to calm my nerves, and I can see you do too. Go and get us some coffee, would you?

Still fuming, the younger man left the office, but not without directing a long hard stare at the superintendent. When he had gone, Inoguchi spoke up.

"It's good to see we still have young ones who are passionate about the job."

"Kuro's a good man," replied Koga, staring at his desk, "a little impulsive and hot headed at times, but he's got a sharp mind."

"He's learning from the best," said Inoguchi, with an appreciative nod. "I can't tell you how happy I was when you returned, Saburou."

"Not so happy that you wouldn't interfere in my investigations, it seems," replied Koga. The superintendent coughed a rueful laugh and began to turn away. He knew that was all the apology he'd get, and that this meeting was now over, but something rankled with Koga, a phrase Inoguchi had used. In the aftermath of the near fist fight with the two Committee men, he was still feeling a little light headed, and he decided to push his luck.

"Why did you call it the 'Rei case'?" he asked.

They hadn't yet reported all their findings to the superintendent. Sure, he knew about the supposed sightings, and about the massacre at the bar, but Inoguchi had made a leap in associating one with the other. It was a leap that even Koga had been unwilling to make until now.

Inoguchi paused, apparently caught off guard. He didn't answer the question and Koga didn't like the slightly haunted look in the old man's eye as they stared at each other for long moments.

"Is she here?" he asked, quietly.

"That isn't our concern," replied Inoguchi. "There is plenty of work for us to be getting on with. I suggest we do so."

He turned away, leaving Koga in his office with more questions and a bigger headache than when he had arrived.

* * *

Inoguchi turned down the blinds in his office, before crossing the darkened room to his desk. He sank into his chair with a weary sigh. His old bones were getting weaker and perhaps his will was as well. He'd wanted to break down and tell Koga everything. He almost had.

All that had stopped him was his desire to protect his subordinates. Koga might have had the sense to steer clear of trouble – a debatable point given his past – but the younger ones like Kuro Suzuki... they didn't yet understand how the world worked. They were idealistic, and while that had its advantages, it was a trait that was wont to get them into trouble – or worse – without the right guidance.

 _And I suppose that means you do know how the world works, eh, old man?_

Inoguchi smiled ruefully. The young ones didn't know how the world worked before third impact. Truth be told, who _did_ know how the world worked now? Not even Inoguchi could make that claim. It was all being made up as they went along.

 _So perhaps things aren't so different from before?_

He reached out and drummed his fingertips absently on his desk, then reached for his phone, punching in the number they'd given him. It rang once then there was a click.

"I'm afraid now isn't the best time, Superintendent. How can I help?"

Inoguchi pursed his lips. There'd not been much respect for his position before third impact, and it seemed as though that wouldn't be improving any time soon. The young man on the other end of the line was always polite, but never more than that.

"A couple of your men showed up at the precinct today. They took files on an ongoing murder investigation away with them."

"Ah, yes, I apologise for not contacting you directly first. Things have been a little... hectic here. We have strong suspicions the murders relate to an ongoing emergency."

"With the return of the first child, you mean?"

There was a pause on the end of the line. Inoguchi filled the silence.

"They almost came to blows with two of my detectives. I almost had a mind to let them."

"It wasn't our intention to upset your officers, Superintendent."

Inoguchi ignored this semi-apology, if that's what it truly was.

"You have her in custody? She's contained?"

There was another pause.

"We do."

He sighed and sat back, then rubbed his eyes with the slender fingers of one hand.

"Well at least that's something. We can relax in the knowledge that these incidents will be removed from our streets."

The silence on the other end of the line continued. Inoguchi sat forward again, worry creasing his already lined forehead.

"They will stop, won't they?" he asked.

"Superintendent Inoguchi," said the young man, calmly, "we are grateful for your continued co-operation. Please be assured that your ongoing assistance is vital for the future of Kaibyaku and the whole of humanity."

The line went dead.

After a long moment, and with trembling fingers, Inoguchi replaced the handset.

* * *

Hyuga sighed and hung up the phone.

"Problems?" asked Misato. She was leaning against the edge of his desk, reading a report.

"No more than usual," replied Makoto, sitting back in his chair. "Sometimes I long for the old days when I only had responsibilities of a first lieutenant. All I had to worry about was the day to day running in operations and the antics of my colleagues."

Misato snorted.

"Don't give me that," she replied, "you were always a career man. You'd have made chief technician given time, and then most likely have progressed to command ranks and even beyond. Your own branch maybe."

"Not if it would have taken me away from you," replied Hyuga smiling. Misato looked at him with a hint of amusement in her eye.

"Well, I'm not going to take responsibility for my subordinates foolish notions," she replied, "even if it meant getting you to spy for me was much easier than I expected."

"You wound me," said Hyuga, in mock distress. "I was only ever professional in my conduct and honourable in my intentions towards a commanding officer."

Misato leaned over him, leering.

"Which is why you put yourself in such danger for your commanding officer, is it? And weren't you just talking about not having to worry about anything but operations?"

Makoto laughed ruefully and rubbed the back of his head.

"Thankyou," said Misato, quietly, the exaggerated leer gone from her face, replaced with a serious expression. "And sorry. I wish I'd said that at the time."

Makoto looked surprised, but before he could say anything in reply, the door to his office opened and Asuka entered, with Rei trailing behind.

"I never understood the adult obsession with flirting," said Asuka, looking at the pair disdainfully, hands on hips.

"Good evening to you too, Asuka," said Misato, sarcastically, straightening from her position leaning over Makoto. "I trust you've acclimatised to your new surroundings."

"How long until our apartment is ready?" asked Asuka, not beating around the bush in the slightest. "We've been here a day and it already feels like too long. I want to get out of this place as soon as possible."

Makoto cleared his throat.

"I'm afraid there's been a bit of a snag with that..." he began.

"You can't leave the base," stated Misato, bluntly. "One of your co-workers at the construction site was found dead at your apartment."

That brought Asuka up short, eyes wide.

"God...! Who was it?"

"A man named Hiro Kawaguchi. He was murdered."

"Hiro!" gasped Auska.

"You were close to him?" asked Makoto. Asuka shook her head.

"Not especially. He was just... normal towards me. Friendly, but we weren't friends. When I started working at the site, everyone avoided me except Hiro. He just treated me like I was anyone else... I really appreciated it... What happened?"

Misato and Makoto exchanged glances.

"We think one of the Angels was looking for you and used him to discover your address," said Misato.

"God..." repeated Asuka.

"So you see why you can't leave the facility?" asked Misato.

"But –"

"Plus there's the issue with the hole Shamshel made into the facility," added Makoto. "We've blocked it up but we can't guarantee another Angel hadn't entered before we did."

"Wouldn't we have been attacked if it had?" asked Asuka.

"There's the chance that it's lying low for some reason," replied Misato. "My first guess would be you two. You and Rei are the best defence this base has got, if we let you leave, there's a chance that might trigger an attack."

Asuka's shoulder's slumped.

"So you're saying that we have to stay here and wait to be attacked? Can't you get your engineers to detect this Angel if it's on the base?"

"It'd be nice if that were the case," sighed Misato, "however, Disciple isn't up and running yet, and it doesn't look like it will be for a week or two at least."

"Maya took one look at the work that had been done and insisted the hardware be taken apart and construction started again from base parts," said Makoto, looking rueful.

"Something about 'the engineers we've got working here not knowing what a bloody power socket is, let alone quantum circuitry!', or some such," agreed Misato, doing a passable impression of the former lieutenant, now chief technician. "Besides which, our detection methods were never that reliable in the past. Certain of the Angels seemed to be able to obscure their signatures until the opportune moment. We have no reason to believe that will have changed."

Asuka slumped further.

"And we still have no idea what they want or why they're trying to get into the facility?"

"About that," said Misato, standing up. "Could you both come with me."

* * *

Matarael stopped, sensed.

The children were moving again. Where they were moving to, the Angel couldn't know for certain, but he suspected it was towards the presence he felt emanating from the belly of the underground facility.

No, it wasn't a presence, per se. He hadn't even been aware of it until he infiltrated the base, so weak was the feeling it gave off, but he was aware that it was similar in form to himself and his Angel siblings.

Similar, but not the same. The... _form_ , whatever it was, was not self aware, it didn't think, it only existed. And yet it still possessed a degree of individuality... it was like a being in the deepest of dreamless sleep. Or a creature waiting to be born.

It was also an irrelevance. All that mattered was that Matarael reached the children first. But that was proving difficult. Since he had entered the base, many hours ago, he had not been able to get close to the children for fear of being spotted and an alarm being raised. If the worst came to the worst, he could most likely kill the majority of the humans – no, the _lilim_ – on the base, but the time taken in doing so would allow the children to arm themselves against him. He was not as strong as Shamshel had been and the tables could easily be turned if they tried to corner him and hunt him down. His best chance was to remain hidden and stalk his prey until they were separated or isolated from their protectors. Then, and only then, would he strike.

And yet, as the hours stretched longer, Matarael's frustration grew. The lilim seemed to know he was there, as if they could sense his presence. They prowled the corridors in teams and avoiding them was getting harder. On several occasions already he had been forced to hide in dark corners or rooms, or even in the upper reaches of the places with higher ceilings.

The cough wasn't helping. It hadn't worsened, but it was by no means improving. More than once it had almost given him away as guards had passed close by. Perhaps his body had given up on trying to adapt and he would be stuck with the cough for the rest of his lifespan, however long that was. Perhaps... but if so, he wouldn't have to worry about it for much longer, whatever the case.

More lilim were coming, they approached from the corridor behind. Swiftly, the Angel drew himself aloft, using his extra limbs and pulling himself through the metal supports that hung the lights in this space, into the darkness above. It was an interesting fact about the lilim that, while they were watchful and alert, they even so hardly ever looked up. There were three, two in front and one walking backwards and sweeping his rifle across the corridor from which they had come. As expected, not one raised their eyes into the darkness of the ceiling supports. Even if they had, they may not have seen him, such was his prowess at remaining motionless, a shadow within a shadow.

But then the coughs threatened him once more. He hacked silently, holding the breath in and closing his throat so he would make no sound, as the lilim passed, unheeding, below him. For a moment the tiniest choking sound escaped him, but the soldiers carried on, deaf to his slip. Pretty soon, they were beyond his vision and around the corner at the end of the corridor.

The urge to cough eased as the lilim disappeared. Matarael dismissed them, and refocussed on his real quarry. The children had until now remained among the highest concentrations of lilim, but now they were moving towards the lowest parts of the base where there were fewer lilim. And that presented an opportunity.

He just had to find a way to follow them. He had to find a way down.

Moving to the end of the corridor, his route opened before him.

* * *

Ito Sugihara stepped into the elevator feeling wearier than he remembered ever feeling before. It had been a long day, what with Shamshel's attack and the subsequent medical emergency with the member of that military unit, Daemon. There had been worse times before third impact, certainly, but back then he hadn't been in charge of the whole medical team, with the all added pressure of responsibility. Now he not only had lives on his hands, but also the expectations, hopes and fears of a sizeable team of doctors and nurses, all looking to him for leadership. With the Angels returning, he had to show them that, in spite of this new crisis, humanity could endure once more. Saving lives was just one way of doing so.

He swiped his card, then reached for the elevator console and his hand hovered over the button that would have taken him down to the lower reaches of the base, as he considered checking on his own personal projects going on down there.

Commander Katsuragi had so far displayed a much more open philosophy to research than her predecessor had. Gendo Ikari had been tight fisted in his approach to Angel technology, with many of the departments completely in the dark as to what other departments were up to. And almost no one had known about Lilith and the true purpose of Nerv. The _old_ Nerv.

Misato Katsuragi, by contrast, had allowed the free exchange of information and ideas surrounding the return of the Angels and the technology required to defeat them. Many members of the different scientific departments and disciplines currently occupying the base had experiments and trials going on down in the most secure labs, Sugihara included.

Plus the artefact was down there.

Doctor Coulsen might be down there, as well. Sugihara liked Coulsen. The entire medical department liked her, it was difficult not to: she was fiercely intelligent, but she was friendly at the same time, affable in an endearing way. It helped that she was good looking and looked after herself, at the age of thirty-five, but her looks were just the icing on the cake, so to speak. She could have been half as good looking she would still have been considered adorably fascinating.

Yes, everyone liked the lovely doctor, but Ito Sugihara liked to think his feelings were just a little bit deeper. A widower at forty-three, he had been married before, but was unattached romantically, something he knew was the case of Helen Coulsen as well. Sugihara's wife had died shortly before third impact. Her death had come during Shamshel's attack, when parts of the city had been flattened in the battle between Shamshel and Unit-01 – including the office his wife had worked in and in the basement of which she had been taking refuge.

Truth be told, though, they had been distant long before that, his work for Nerv keeping them apart both physically for long periods and mentally when they were together, when he had to keep so much of what he did locked up inside. This distance might have contributed to the fact that they had never had children. He _had_ loved her, in spite of this, and her death had affected him badly.

Helen was different. She knew exactly what he did, as she did the same things. He didn't have to keep anything from her and the feelings that he'd found developing weren't necessarily to be discouraged. Except perhaps on professional grounds...

His finger hovered over the button for a moment more, then he shifted and punched the button that would take him to command. In the end, it was the fact that Doctor Coulsen might be down below that changed his mind. While it would be nice to see her, she would no doubt be busy and seeing him in his current state would hardly help his cause, romantically speaking.

No, he would report to command, then maybe get a bite to eat in the cafeteria, before making his way home to his apartment for a well earned night's sleep. Apparently it was still raining outside. He'd forgotten to bring his umbrella.

As the elevator began to ascend, he leaned back against the wall and rubbed his weary eyes. At forty-three years of age, he wasn't getting any younger. These long days and stressful times were adding to the dark smudges under (and the wrinkles around the corners of) his eyes. Yes, definitely better that Helen didn't see him at the moment! He could always catch up with her tomorrow, maybe ask her out for that meal, as he'd been trying to work up the courage to do for several weeks now.

The doors opened and people got on, the doors closed. The doors opened and the people got off again. As he rose slowly through the levels, Ito thought back to the day he'd just finished. The soldier from Daemon had lived... _just_. He was now in a recovery bay, hooked up to enough machinery that if some alien were to come down and attempt to classify his species, they'd be forgiven for thinking he was a cyborg. It was necessary, however: being struck by three minigun bullets and living was, as Ito understood it, unheard of. He'd been extremely fortunate as to the glancing nature of the strikes, but even so, great chunks of his flesh had been blown out and the resulting loss of blood had very nearly killed him.

Ito had managed to stabilise his condition and now it was down to the flesh-smiths of the grafting department to regrow and reknit the tissue. There were wonder-workers in that department, Ito knew, but even so, he found himself wondering if the man would ever walk again, let alone return to his unit. It brought home to Ito exactly how fragile their lives were, all of them. At any moment it could be taken from you.

As the elevator finally slowed towards his floor, Ito stood, preparing to step out. The doors hissed open, but the doctor found his exit blocked by a looming figure. Raising his head, Ito Sugihara looked up into yellowed eyes, contained in a face of pallid, unhealthy skin.

The alien eyes, blue in yellow, were the last thing he ever saw.

* * *

The commander led them through the facility, along travelators, through corridors and bays, down elevators. Asuka followed on behind, with Rei trailing a little further back.

"How big is this place?" asked Asuka.

"Nowhere near the size of the Geofront," replied Misato. "We wouldn't have had a hope of building something on that scale nowadays, and certainly not in the time we had. But it's big enough for our present needs." She glanced around at them. "Actually, we're having trouble filling the place – though we're recruiting new personnel all the time. The city planners intended the facility to be a disaster relief centre, originally, before the council re-purposed and extended it for our needs... though, really, it's fulfilling its intended purpose as far as I'm concerned. I can't think of much more of a disaster than the Angels coming back. Especially with humanity on the brink as it is."

Asuka looked back at Rei who trailed behind. Whatever the young girl thought about the resurgence of Nerv didn't show on her features: her face was unreadable.

 _And just when I thought I was getting her to open up,_ thought Asuka, bitterly.

"Where are you taking us?" she asked, looking forwards again.

"I'm taking you to the lowest levels where our most important research facilities are."

They reached a heavy door with guards on either side. One of the guards saluted her, to which she nodded in reply and pushed her key card into the slot by the side of the door. It beeped and the heavy door ground open.

"We need to upgrade the security systems as soon as possible..." muttered Misato. "Card scanners just don't cut it." She looked at them as they hesitated in front of the door. "Well, come on then, miss 'second-in-command'."

Asuka frowned hard and stomped forwards, passing into the space beyond.

It was a laboratory complex. Misato walked them through, pointing out areas of interest, weapons testing ranges, robotics bays, vehicle departments, even a hangar under a central shaft that was stoppered by heavy interlocking doors. Scientists and technicians were dotted about, though not in great numbers. There were no aircraft however, only parts that looked like they had been salvaged from wreckage. Asuka didn't want to think about where the wreckage had come from.

"We don't have many aviation experts at the moment," Misato told them, "though hopefully several are on their way from the United States as we speak."

They moved on, Misato leading them towards what looked like a bunker doorway, wide sliding doors that appeared able to deflect missile impacts without any trouble. Again, her key-card allowed them access via a side doorway. They passed into a high ceilinged but dimly lit laboratory of serried work benches and shelves filled with sample jars and chemicals. Along one wall were many large glass tanks filled with pale translucent fluid.

Looking back, Asuka saw Rei's eyes were wide with apprehension. It was obvious she didn't want to approach the containers. They were unsettlingly similar to the vats she and her clone siblings had been grown in.

Then she saw the first in line was occupied.

For a sickening moment, Asuka saw Rei – _another_ Rei – in the tank, then her focus returned and she saw that wasn't possble.

The tank contained remains, remains so badly dismembered, burnt and mutilated they were almost unrecognisable. _Almost_. Scraps of what looked like red fabric floating in the liquid told her everything she needed to know about the occupant.

Asuka reached back and took Rei's hand, squeezing and feeling the girl squeeze back. It gave her a warm feeling. She cleared her throat.

"Misato," she began, "what is this?"

Misato looked at her seriously.

"You said so yourself: No secrets." She stepped towards the tank, reaching out a hand to touch the glass. "This is all that's left of Shamshel."

She looked around the room. A technician working at a bench nearby nodded in greeting to Misato. Apart from him, the room was empty of other people.

"Where is everyone?" she asked him.

"Lieutenant Colonel Hyuga called down and asked for the suspension of activities while you were giving our guests the tour," replied the technician. "Most have already left. I'm just completing a few necessary tasks before turning in for the night, myself."

"And the lighting?" asked Misato, nodding upwards.

"We're keeping the lights low to prevent further degradation of the Angel remains. We've managed to find a liquid suspension that appears to have halted immediate decay. Structural and material testing is scheduled to start tomorrow."

"Very good," replied Misato, turning back to Asuka and Rei.

Asuka had her head in her hand.

"You're experimenting on Angels?" she said.

Misato frowned.

"Yes," she replied. "What did you expect?"

"Not this," said Asuka, releasing Rei and stepping forward. "What happened to not making the same mistakes all over again?"

"If the angels are attacking, we need to be prepared. We need as much information as possible about the threat. We have to make informed, level-headed decisions if we want to have a hope of combating the Angels again."

"And this is coming from the Queen of level-headed-decisions," snapped Asuka, looking severe and folding her arms. "What were Doctor Ritsuko's projections of success for your plan to defeat Sahaquiel last time? Please tell me, oh Queen?"

The technician nearby stifled what might have been a snigger with a cough. Misato glared at him and the man smiled sheepishly, turning back to his work.

"It worked, didn't it?" she answered. "Do you suddenly not trust me to do what's best for everyone?"

"After Third Impact?" Asuka shot back. "Why should I?"

Misato folded her own arms, a dangerous smile on her face, her eye twitching.

"Oh, I don't know... because I was the only one in Nerv trying to stop it?"

"And a great job you did of that!" spat Asuka.

"Well maybe this time will be different if I have everyone on my side rather than working against me! Anyway, I didn't bring you down here to have an argument with you, I brought you down here to bring you up to speed. Not everything that's going on here is thanks to me, you know? Some of this stuff was here already."

Asuka looked supremely annoyed, but shut up at this. Misato stalked to the far end of the room, where most of one wall was taken up by armoured metal shutters. Asuka and Rei followed, apprehensively.

"This is the last shock I have for you, I promise," said Misato, turning to them. She nodded to the technician, who retrieved a remote control from the bench and hit a button on it. The shutters rolled smoothly upwards.

Beyond the extra thick armoured glass, housed in a panelled cell the size of a small house, lay the head of Unit-02.

One side of it's head was more or less intact, the red armour patched and reworked over the intact sections of skull. The other side was a cratered mess of reconstituted skull fragments and grey-purple skin. Thick cables trailed from holes in this side of the head and snaked to computational units set up around it, which in turn sprouted wires that led to ports on the panelled walls. On the armoured side, the two familiar green eye lenses had been refitted. On the side with no armour covering it, two further eyes stared blankly out at nothing.

Asuka took it better than Misato had expected. She clapped a hand over her mouth, but managed to keep from vomiting. All that escaped her lips was a small moan. She seemed unable to say anything else. It was left to Rei to voice what Asuka was thinking in a quietly resigned voice.

"You're using Eva technology..."

"We are," replied Misato. "The armour you wore yesterday was constructed using technology culled from Unit-02. The AT projectors as well. Don't worry, Asuka, it's dead. We aren't rebuilding the Eva series."

Asuka staggered to a bench and leant heavily upon it. Rei moved until she was standing awkwardly next to her, but didn't seem to know what to do to comfort the former Eva pilot. Misato regarded the German, coolly, until she regained herself.

"Are you okay," she asked after a few moments. Asuka straightened, stretching her shoulders, and turned hot eyes on Misato.

"I'm fine," she said. Then she pointed towards the cell. "I want this stopped. I want that thing destroyed."

Misato shook her head.

"I can't do that," she told Asuka.

"I have a veto on all plans I–"

"Not on this," replied Misato, cutting her off. "We need this technology Asuka. So much was lost during Third Impact. Humanity was weakened and its ability to protect itself stripped away. This –" she pointed at the huge head "– is the only way to get it back."

"But you're using Eva technology!" insisted Asuka, as if that simple statement was a conclusive argument all in itself.

"Well what would you have me do?" hissed Misato in reply. "The Evas were the only weapon proven to be effective against the Angels."

"But you can't! You can't start working with the Evas again, they were SEELE's tools for bringing about instrumentality! We'd be no better than them if we carried on their work!"

"SEELE are gone – and you need to get your priorities straight, Asuka. This is survival we're talking about!" replied Misato.

"Priorities?" sneered the German. "That's rich coming from the person who, in spite of everything, was depressed because she _turned thirty!_ "

The technician coughed again, louder than before. This time, Misato ignored him.

Rei was looking between Asuka and Misato, concern on her face, but unable to work out how to interject.

"Well, at least I've grown up a bit!" continued Misato. "At least I'm willing to make the hard choices! What would you do? Tip everything we've learnt into the sea and run away so you can shack up with your new girlfriend?"

"My new _girlfriend_?!" replied Asuka, looking genuinely shocked. "You... I don't... you can't think..."

"Oh, touched a nerve, have I?" smirked Misato. "Never were much good with relationships, were you?"

"Says the one who kept running after a man who came on to SHINJI!" yelled Asuka.

The coughs coming from the technician were now a gale. Misato whirled on him.

"Now, really, that's too much–"

But the technician wasn't listening to them any more. The technician wasn't listening to anything at all.

His corpse hung in the air, held aloft by long slender limbs, dripping blood onto the sterile floor from where the sharp tips of the appendages had pierced his body, lifting him up like a ragdoll. Behind the hanging doll of a corpse, a tall figure stood. He – Asuka assumed from the figure's build that it was a he – was dressed in a full length duster coat, and it took her a horrified moment to realise that the segmented limbs that had pierced the technician through originated from this coated man's back.

The technician's corpse dropped to the floor as the Angel released him and took a step forward. More coughs raced from behind the buttoned up collar and the Angel hunched over.

"Scatter!" shouted Misato.

The room was suddenly drenched in blood red light. An alarm started wailing and it seemed that for a moment, the Angel appeared confused by the new sound and the change of lighting. Misato threw herself one way and Asuka pushed Rei in another direction, disappearing behind the rows of workbenches.

The communication bead in Misato's ear crackled and then Hyuga's voice came over, tight with suppressed panic.

"Commander! Matarael is in the facility, it killed Doctor Ito! We think it's on its way down to you!"

Misato pushed her back against another bench.

"A little late, Makoto..." growled Misato, pulling her pistol from its holster under her arm. "Get troops down here on the double! We're unsupported with no eva gear!"

"Yes ma'am!" replied Makoto, and he disappeared from the line.

Misato rolled around the bench and fired her pistol at Matarael, but the Angel whipped it's iron hard limbs in front of itself, easily deflecting her bullets. She rolled behind another bench, fully expecting the Angel's arms to pierce her through at any moment.

But it never happened. Looking around the bench, she saw the Angel had turned away from her. She fired again, and again the limbs stopped the bullets, moving unnaturally fast to its owner's defence. It didn't even turn back.

Even though she was the only one attacking it, it seemed reluctant to go after her, which could only mean one thing: it wanted Asuka and Rei.

But what could they do but run? Misato saw them scramble from bench to bench, trying to stay low and keep from the Angel's view. Matarael followed them implacably, turning over tables and shelves to get to them, shattering test tubes and glass beakers on the floor. How could they fight it? They had no weapons and no armour. They were defenceless. Misato nearly so herself. All she had was a pistol. She looked down at the gun in her hand.

How could she fight an Angel? How could she even hope to harm it?

 _How could she hope to..._

Hope. She felt it blaze through her as she realised what she must do. But she'd have to get close, closer than should reasonably be possible.

She opened a communication line to Asuka, fearful that with its nearly-human form, it might also understand human language.

"Asuka!" she whispered. "Distract it! Keep it focused on you!"

"That doesn't seem to be much of a problem," the young German hissed in reply. But she jumped up from behind a bench and began yelling swear words in German, while star jumping and waving her arms. Matarael let out an unearthly roar and went after her, smashing the bench aside. She pushed Rei away from her and dived to her right, towards the cell containing the Eva head, but Matarael was quicker and lashed out with a limb, catching Asuka heavily across the chest and throwing her against the glass. As she lay propped up against the window, gasping and trying get oxygen into her lungs, the Angel loomed over her. Pulling open the collar of its coat, it revealed its horror of a mouth, its myriad sharp teeth and wet tunnel maw. With a choking sound, it began bringing up the corrosive bile that would end the German.

"Asuka!" cried Rei.

The room lit up green. The brightest green Asuka could ever imagine. The emerald glare banished the sickly red of the warning lights entirely. It took her a moment to realise the light was coming from behind her and she twisted around against the glass and looked into the cell beyond.

The lenses in Unit-02s helmet had lit up like green fog-lamps and the uncovered eyes seemed to stare at the Angel with unbridled and unrivalled hatred as if it could banish the horror with its gaze alone.

The Angel itself looked as surprised as anyone in the room. It straightened, backing away from the green glow and, at that moment, Misato stepped up to the Angel and pushed her pistol against its temple.

"I just remembered there _was_ one Angel killed by conventional weaponry..." she said. The pistol barked in her hand.

Even with Matarael's preternatural reactions, the bullet couldn't miss. It ploughed through the creature's head, destroying whatever passed for its brain before exiting and slamming into the wall, several metres away. Matarael crumpled to the floor and a thin rill of acid expelled from its throat, setting the floor tiles fizzing as it ate steadily through them.

The commander looked down at the corpse of the Angel-human as it twitched its last. Then she looked up at Asuka.

"Matarael never did have a strong AT field." She told her.

And she lowered the pistol.

* * *

Outside, on the streets of Kaibyaku, the rain finally stopped.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Angel of Embryos.**

Rei walked the night drenched streets of Kaibyaku, searching. What she was searching for she couldn't recall, but it was important she found it, and as soon as possible. Everyone she had ever been close to was in terrible danger; the only way to save them was to find what she was looking for.

But she had no idea what it was.

The city was lightless. A power cut, maybe, or the angels damaging the local grid; something had happened to shut off the illumination she needed to find her way. The only thing lighting her path were the dim stars of a moonless sky, shining high above.

Shinji stood on the other side of the street. He was impossibly lit by some unknown internal source. Looking at him was like looking at an angel from myth, brighter than the world around it, yet easily defined by the viewer. And yet, he wasn't lit like a sun, all radiance and blinding light, he was simply in the day time, while the rest of the city was in the night.

He would not look at her.

"Why are you here?"

The voice spoke out of the darkness. Distant... heard, but almost not heard. It was a familiar voice, but it spoke in a way she had never heard before, so the identity of its owner escaped her.

Rei moved on, stumbling in the dark, leaving the downcast Shinji behind. He couldn't help her anyway.

" _Why are you here?_ "

The voice wasn't asking anything she hadn't already asked herself. Why she was here was the reason she had sought out Asuka. They would find the answer together, she was certain of it.

Cold laughter trickled from the darkened alleys around her, though who was laughing remained a mystery while they remained out of sight. Shinji disappeared into the gloom behind her as she fought her way onwards, pushing against the shadows that gathered around, like malevolent creatures. His expression had been sad – but then hadn't it almost always been sad? Rei hadn't been able to ease his burden, even at the end of all things. Now he had the weight of the world on his shoulder's once again, but this time he was alone. Even Misato had abandoned him, though it was true it had been with great cause.

She pushed thought of him from her mind. Shinji was not her immediate concern. Something was coming. A presence that brought with it great destruction. She could feel it in the dark, as it crawled inexorably closer.

Looking up, Rei saw that the night wasn't moonless, after all. It hung there, huge in the sky, but somehow darker than it's surroundings. It was an impossible moon. A black moon, blacker than the sky that held it.

"You are alone. No one will help you."

Ahead, a light bloomed. Rei lowered her eyes from the Stygian firmament and saw her: Asuka. For a moment her heart lifted, but then she saw what had become of her comrade and companion.

She was crucified on metal spars, against the massive glass wall of a huge skyscraper at the centre of the city. Her bones were twisted and broken in her plug suit, leaking blood down the glass and across the pavement. She was dead.

"No!"

This time, the voice was her own. She raised it in denial of what she was seeing. It couldn't be. She was going to save everyone, she was going to save _her!_ They were supposed to find the answer to her existence together!

But the lie of that belief was shown, bloody, stark and undeniable, in front of her: it was too late, she was already dead.

"No." she said again, suddenly understanding. "This isn't real."

"Isn't it?"

The Asuka-corpse lifted its head and regarded her. Her skin was ashen and rent, her eyes were missing. The empty sockets stared at her accusingly, even though the face itself was expressionless, with none of the young German's usually undeniable vitality.

Blood continued to flow across the pavement, now becoming a wave that lapped at Rei's feet, even though she stood many tens of metres away. More blood gushed from Asuka's empty eyes, becoming a river, then a torrent. The torrent engulfed Rei, forcing her several steps backwards, swirling around her, pushing into her mouth and nose, clogging her eyes and ears.

None of this was real: she was drowning in nightmares, drowning in red, in blood, in lcl...

* * *

Rei opened her red eyes. The room into which she awoke was red.

Red in red.

For a moment, it was as if the dream had become reality, but then she saw the red wasn't dark lifeblood, a swirling monsoon of vitae. It was bright flashing light. The room was flashing red warning lights. No sirens accompanied the lights: there was no immediate emergency.

With the faintest of groans, Rei sat up on her bed and saw her door was open. Asuka leant against the frame, alive and whole, arms folded in front of her. She was dressed in her plugsuit. As Rei rose, sleep dulled and confused, her comrade spoke.

"They're bringing it in."

* * *

Misato's command vehicle headed a convoy of vehicles as it rolled through the night dark streets of Kaibyaku. Behind it, three limousines followed in close order. An old salvaged American humvee transport brought up the rear, its roof mounted machine gun manned and pointing back down the road from which they had come. The limousines were old as well, but they were well maintained, with tinted windows that looked bulletproof and prevented anyone outside from seeing the occupants.

Inside the command vehicle, Misato sat with her arms folded and her legs crossed, back pressed against the padded seat. One finger tapped against her red jacket in time with the gentle bounce of the vehicles wheels on the road. A full squad of soldiers surrounded her, fully armed and ready for any trouble.

"Ten minutes," said Makoto over her earpiece.

"How is the ambassador doing?" she replied, not looking up from the floor.

"Having kittens," replied Makoto, sounding amused. "Though I can't say I'm feeling much better about the situation. It's getting warm in here."

"He'll be on his way to his original destination as soon as we make the rendezvous." said Misato. "Tell him to keep it together until then. Asuka, are you still awake?"

"Very funny," replied the German, sourly. She was the sole passenger in the foremost of the limousines, fully armoured in her eva-gear and ready for any eventuality, but she'd been tense and snappish ever since they set out. "I'm fine, just keep your eyes on the city. I don't want to be caught unawares like we were with Matarael."

The commander chuckled darkly. Asuka certainly wasn't alone in that.

"Rei?" asked Misato.

"No problems," replied Rei in her usual half-whisper. She was in the third of the limousines, and was similarly armed and armoured, but where Asuka was bellicose, the blue haired girl had hardly made a peep since they had set off. Misato was about to direct further enquiries to other members of the convoy when the young girl unexpectedly spoke again. "I agree with Asuka."

Misato's mouth twitched in amusement. Was that the closest Rei had ever been to a rebuke?

"Noted," she replied. She changed frequencies. "General, how are things at HQ? Are we ready to receive our guest?"

She had to wait a few moments, but then the voice of general Forster came over the airwaves, loud and clear and not a little brusque. Sounds of frenetic activity permeated the line over which he spoke.

"Your chief technician is still bringing the supercomputer on line. I trust you have a plan in place in case the security of your so-called 'guest' cannot be guaranteed?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, General," replied Misato, "though I have every confidence in Maya's ability and her... sense of timing."

The general harrumphed.

"You have more faith than I do," he replied.

"I do," agreed Misato. She paused. "And general... you have my permission to give the chief technician a boot up the backside if she doesn't look like she's trying her damnedest to be ready on time."

That elicited a dark laugh from the general. Misato smiled. It wasn't quite good natured comradeship, but it was a start, at least.

And it was certainly a welcome one. Forster's close encounter with Shamshel had done much to change his opinions on the seriousness of the threat the Angels posed, however it had not changed his attitude towards the personnel at Nerv in the same way. Misato had been surprised when he hadn't immediately shipped back off to America after nearly being killed by the so called 'fourth Angel' (not that such designations meant much any more, what with the fulfilment of the terms of the Dead Sea Scrolls), and had instead elected to stay and keep watch over the survivors of his anti-Angel unit. Misato allowed him to sit in on briefings and debriefings, during which he maintained a subdued, yet simmering, presence.

Not that there was much to debrief about. In the four weeks since the double assaults of Shamshel and Matarael, there'd been neither sight nor sound of any of the other Angels. It was theorised by some that the remaining Angels were lying low because they were unseated by Nerv's success at killing two of their number in quick succession. It was a hopeful theory, one that Misato didn't believe for a minute.

The surviving members of Daemon continued to recuperate under the care of Doctor Coulsen, who had reluctantly taken over leadership of the medical team after Ito Sugihara's untimely, and rather gruesome, demise. The unfortunate doctor had been burnt almost beyond recognition, in much the same way that Shamshel and the homeless man had been. His pass-card had been found on Matarael's corpse, explaining how the Angel had managed to penetrate the most secure parts of the Nerv facility quite so easily. Three security personnel, two technicians and the poor doctor himself had paid with their lives for that mistake. The corpse of Matarael himself (itself?) had been interred in one of the glass pods in the research labs, where he was apparently facilitating great strides within the scientific departments – who were all falling over themselves in excitement at the chance to run tests on a near undamaged Angel. Enhancements and modifications to the armours now officially designated 'Eva Gear', that had been assigned to the first and second children, had already been undertaken based on the results that were already coming back.

As a result of Matarael's incursion, the security systems in place were substantially upgraded as a matter of urgency. Part of that process involved the bringing online of the Disciple supercomputer, however the sheer complexity and ambition of the design set out by Maya left some of the technical staff wondering in not so quiet whispers whether it was even achievable in the first place.

Maya had ignored the doubters and built a close-knit team of technicians and engineers around herself, all striving for the same goal. They had achieved the extraordinary already, simply in creating the many servers and processors and thinking engines and artificial intelligence units necessary for each core, and by integrating them into the structure of the Nerv facility, until the facility itself could have been argued to have been a living, sentient being, capable of communicating intentions and even defending itself. The real trouble came when she attempted to turn all of the separate parts on at the same time.

The seamless integration of twelve AI cores would prove to be the greatest challenge the team faced. Three times already, Maya had attempted a full reboot to bring the entirety of the supercomputer online. Three times the reboot had failed, when unsolvable conflicts had emerged between the cores. Three times Disciple had denied her.

They were working on the fourth attempt as the convoy sped towards the Nerv facility. But what made it's functionality critical was the passenger they were carrying.

A week ago, the Kaibyaku central council had been openly contacted by the United American City States, the current governmental body drawing the survivors of America back together. Nerv had been contacted previously, with the view of an exchange of expertise and materials, but since the existence of Nerv was still a secret, the general populace were naturally unaware of this. Now the Americans wanted to make a public gesture, to pull strings which would draw the disparate nations of the world back into some semblance of an international community. Thus, it was decided an ambassador would be sent to Japan, to be received by the council in a show of a renewal of friendship, of standing together and reforming bonds, so that antipathy and enmity could not grow in their absence.

In truth, it was an honourable goal, though perhaps a distraction that Misato could normally have done without. As it was, however, it also provided the perfect cover for a critical Nerv operation.

The ambassador had arrived early that morning, flying into a newly built airstrip just outside Kaibyaku. The Americans had wanted to make a big show of the ambassador's debarkation and procession through the city, they had wanted the streets thronging with onlookers and well wishers. Misato had seen to it that would not happen. Not during the ambassador's _arrival_ at least.

She had deliberately arranged flights that would bring the ambassador to Kaibyaku in the early hours of the morning, so that few, if any, spectators would bear witness to their arrival. Local media would report on the event, but only on the news bulletins the next day. Meanwhile, the ambassador would be whisked through the city in an armoured cavalcade, towards the rising skyscraper at its centre, the seat of the council... with just a brief stop off on the way.

When the reason for the stop off was made clear to the ambassador, the terrified man had almost called the whole trip off. Misato, with the backing of the Council and the new American administration, had forced the matter. Even so, she had worried that the ambassador might back out of the trip on his own, going AWOL, or even injuring himself to get out of the operation. It had been a bit of a relief when she had personally observed the man stepping out of the jet, earlier that night, descending to the waiting cavalcade. The ambassador had looked pale, drawn and tired. Fortunately, he had kept his self composure as the middle of the three limousines had opened its door and Makoto had welcomed him into its interior. Misato needed anyone watching to buy the whole charade, or the situation they found themselves in might have rapidly deteriorated.

"How is the package, Makoto," asked the commander, checking her watch and the map displayed on the computerised table in the command vehicle.

"We're registering temperature fluctuations and signature changes. I hope whatever Maya has cooked up as containment for this thing is effective, or we could be making a hell of a mess for ourselves."

"I understand the theoretical physics for the device is sound," replied Misato, "but the processing power required to maintain its operation mean only Disciple will be able to keep it running. So this whole operation could be for nothing if it's not up and working by the time we get back."

Asuka's voice broke into their conversation.

"Well, she'd better get it working, then. It'd be stupid if we fool all the other Angels, just to let one we've brought into HQ ourselves go berserk on us!"

"You don't like my plan, Asuka?" asked Misato.

"Huh!" muttered the young German. "When do I ever like your plans, Misato?"

She cut the line, leaving the commander grinning slightly. Makoto spoke up again.

"I have to say, I agree with Asuka," he said, "and not just because the ambassador and I are the ones that'll die first if our little egg hatches prematurely. This seems a little reckless, commander. We have to assume that one or more of the Angels have means of gathering intelligence that go beyond human ability..."

The 'egg' that Makoto referred to was being carried in a strong box in the limousine that the ambassador had entered. It had been discovered at a construction site to the east, at the edges of the city limits, closer to the New Tokyo Sea, the large body of water formed by the evacuation of Lilith's Egg during Third Impact. When they had been digging the foundations, a section of floor had collapsed, revealing a lava cave in which the embryo was interred, inside a translucent egg made of a solid material that couldn't be identified and which ferociously burned the skin of anyone touching it directly.

As soon as Nerv got wind of it, the site was closed and sealed, those that had seen or touched the egg isolated from the wider city. Scientists were sent to analyse the find, but without the facilities available at Nerv HQ, not much could be discerned, other than that the embryo was alive. It was apparent that it needed to be transported back to Nerv if the nature of the embryo was to be understood.

But how?

If the embryo was a proto-Angel, what if it awoke during transit? What if another Angel attacked while it was being moved? The members of Nerv had already discovered that one Angel had no qualms about killing another. If they were truly in competition with one another, would one or more not see the opportunity to remove a rival should its existence become known to them?

"I guess we'll know the answer to that before we reach HQ," Misato told Makoto. "Until then, all we can do is remain alert and rehearse our contingency plans and alternative routes. How long?"

"Five minutes," said Makoto.

"Disciple?" asked Misato.

"Still offline," replied her second in command. Misato tutted and retuned the radio again.

"General," she said, "I hope you've got your boot ready."

* * *

"How is it coming Miss Ibuki?"

Maya gritted her teeth as she fought with the wiring and AI contacts within the core designated 'Andrew'. The space was cramped and she was having to work on her back, underneath a bank of processor modules and server nodes.

"My rank is 'Chief Technician', general. I'd appreciate it if you would refer to me as such."

"Last I checked, Nerv was a private military," replied Forster gruffly, "I have no requirement to do as you ask."

"Still," said Maya as she slid a board back into place, "some common courtesy would be nice in that department."

Forster just grunted in sarcastic amusement.

"How long?"

"Misato hasn't given us enough time to complete modifications, we're running into unexpected parsing issues between the cores. If you were to ask for a time frame, I'd say an hour after she wants it up and running. Under normal circumstances, that is. Her deadline is insane."

"Nevertheless, this is the deadline the Commander has given you. You have a responsibility to meet it."

 _Then why don't you come down here and try connecting up some quantum circuitry,_ she thought, blackly.

"Don't you worry, general, we'll be ready," said Maya, as she slammed the AI processor casing shut and moved onto the next. "Cho!" she called to her assistant, "check server three. Do it right, we can't afford any mistakes now."

Cho was a young half-Chinese, half-Japanese girl who was said to be every bit as much of a prodigy as Maya had been at her age. She looked up from the laptop she was feverishly tapping away at, the surprise clear on her face.

"I'm supposed to be assisting you," she replied.

"We don't have any more time for double checks," Maya told her, "at this point, we need as many different tasks being completed by as many different hands as we have."

"Yes chief!" replied her assistant, and she scurried on all fours over to the server Maya was indicating, plugging her laptop into the port on the casing.

As she worked, Maya took a moment to check on the other teams working at the other cores dotted around the base.

"Yuki, how is Philip?"

There was a pause and then the voice of another technician replied over the internal speakers.

"I think we've got the fluctuations in the AI processors under control, chief, and the dummy and decoy systems seem to be operating within parameters. We shouldn't have a repeat of the Sons of Thunder identifying Philip as hostile this time."

"Good," she replied. "Sergei, have you brought Nathanael's verification programmes up to speed with..."

Maya continued to tick off the various tasks of the various workers of the various cores around Nerv HQ quickly and efficiently. Disciple was modelled on the twelve apostles of legend. The technicians and engineers working around her had named each of the twelve cores after an individual apostle and tailored their programming appropriately. In Maya's original models, she had suggested that individuality between the cores would lead to a harder system to crack, as complexity was ramped up, so too were the raft of responses to hacking Disciple could employ. The engineers that had first begun laying out the groundwork for the full implementation of Disciple in Nerv HQ, before Maya had even returned, had taken the next logical step, giving the cores personalities that both clashed and complimented one another, so as to create a gestalt that was as complex and adaptable as a team of human scientists, or a unit of human soldiers, could be.

The problem with that was getting them to agree on anything at all. It was clear some of the cores would have to be more powerful than others. In the end, none of the cores could be more powerful than the one that held the source code for the entire array of cores. Peter was that core, the rock on which all the other cores depended. If Peter were to be compromised in some way, the rest of Disciple would likely quickly follow.

Maya was confident, however, that it would never come to that.

Well, it certainly wouldn't come to that if Disciple never started up in the first place...

As the last group of technicians reported themselves ready, Maya slammed her processor casing shut and pulled herself out from under the machinery. Even so, she couldn't stand erect within the core housing. The cramped space was a mess of cables, wires and pipes, and programmers notes adorned every free surface. For a moment, the scene reminded her horribly of Magi, and of working in concert with Ritsuko...

She shook herself and looked to Cho. The younger girl nodded and closed her laptop.

"Okay, everyone," said Maya, "let's give this another go."

* * *

As the convoy sped onwards, Rei found herself staring out of her limousine window at the large building standing at the centre of Kaibyaku. She only saw it in flashes between the block buildings they raced beside, but it was an imposing sight when in view. The residents of the city had taken to calling the growing skyscraper 'the Spire' and from its shape it was understandable why they had. It was like a tapered spike driving up into the sky, a glass monolith that looked like a blade, a wizards hat, or a church steeple. The spire was as yet unfinished, though its construction so far had been progressing at record pace. The building was projected to be completed by the third quarter of the following year. It was intended to be the city's centre of government and by extension that of wider Japan as well. In fact, many floors were already in use, and the Kaibyaku central council were well into the process of taking up residence. The Kaibyaku emergency housing committee had been working from the building for several months now.

Why had the building been in her dream? Was there some significance to its presence?

In truth, the nightmare had been just one of many. The recurring dreams had started around the time she had returned to Nerv. They often involved Asuka and, for some reason, the Spire as well, the setting only ever varying slightly. But none had been as intense as the one she had suffered earlier that night. Flashes of the nightmare returned as she caught glimpses of the building, flashes of Asuka crucified against its walls, on spars of twisted construction metal, of flowing blood and –

Rei blinked and brought herself back to reality. She couldn't afford to be distracted from the current mission. Anything might happen at any time, and if she wasn't aware, she could not react. Focusing herself, she glanced at the limousine in front of her. Makoto was inside. He would keep the ambassador under control and monitor the proto-Angel. It was her job to protect him from outside threats – hers and Asuka's. She knew Makoto was good at his job, so she had a responsibility to be good at hers.

Briefly she wondered if Makoto or any of the others at Nerv suffered from nightmares...

* * *

Makoto didn't have time to think about dreams and nightmares. The one that could potentially overtake him at any second was occupying him sufficiently as it was. He pulled a towel from the limousine mini-bar and used it to mop his brow. It was getting uncomfortably warm in the luxury car and he was starting to sweat profusely.

The squat metal carry case containing the embryo sat on the floor, between himself and the ambassador. He leant forward to check the display next to the handle once more. Whatever was happening to the egg, this highly advanced container Maya had cooked up appeared unable to fully halt or even monitor its processes. The metal was hot to the touch and was warming the interior of the car to near unsafe degrees now.

The ambassador himself was slumped in the opposite chair, suit jacket open and tie pulled off. He looked haggard, perhaps understandably. A long haul flight, followed immediately by a nerve-wracking dash through a night time metropolis in the company of a real life Angel could do that to a man. Makoto smiled inwardly as he remembered the meeting on the tarmac of the airfield, less than an hour previously.

He had watched the man descend the mobile steps from the private jet with stiff reluctance. He had shaken hands with the few members of the council present to greet him before he had made his way to the waiting limousine. An aide had already opened the door and Makoto looked out as the ambassador stooped and looked in. His face was already pale and his fear darkened eyes darted immediately to the case sitting on the floor.

"Is that it?" he'd asked, without preamble. His hands had fidgeted with the hem of his suit jacket.

"It is," Makoto had replied. "Welcome ambassador. Thank you for doing this."

The man hadn't answered. He didn't seem to want to get into the car. Instead he looked around the assembled vehicles, all ready to be off into the night.

"Is she here?"

Makoto had nodded towards the command vehicle.

"She is."

"Crazy bitch," said the ambassador. "She think she's impressing anyone getting this up close and personal with something like that? Why isn't she overseeing all this from her underground bunker?"

"The commander prefers a more hands on approach," replied Makoto, wryly. "If you wouldn't mind, ambassador, we shouldn't be wasting time here."

With one last wary look at the case, the man climbed into the limousine. The door was closed behind him and with that, the cavalcade swept across the runway and began its winding journey into the heart of Kaibyaku.

It wasn't long after that the case had begun to give off heat.

"How much longer?" moaned the ambassador.

"Just a few more minutes," replied Makoto.

"How do you do it?" asked the man, looking at him.

"Do what?" asked Makoto, looking up.

"Remain so calm when you're within feet of that... _thing_. When you're potentially moments from death."

Makoto smiled.

"I've been looked down on by gods and lived, ambassador. I've known I was about to die, vaporised by an Angel's fury and yet lived on. I've been a pawn in the games of immortals and madmen. I'm still here. When you've been through what I have, you learn that death isn't necessarily the worst of experiences. Death isn't necessarily as bad as knowledge, or madness, or even failure. It isn't as bad as failing someone important."

"You're talking about your duty to your commanding officer? Your uniform, is that it?"

Makoto's smile widened, and shook his head, making the ambassador frown.

"Not for a rank or badge, no. Nor for a superior's expectations."

"A woman, then? Someone you love?"

"Interesting that in this day and age we still assume a lover of the opposite sex," said Makoto, a little ruefully, "but yes, it is for someone I love... and, yes, she is a woman."

The ambassador snorted.

"So you're doing all this to impress a girl? I heard you people were all crazy, but I didn't believe it till now."

Makoto was about to respond, but a shrill beeping cut across the enclosed space before he could. He turned to the case immediately, studying the feeds on the readouts set into the top.

"What is it?" asked the ambassador.

"Thermal spike," said Makoto, his eyes narrowing, "and something else... something..."

An unearthly screech cut the quiet inside the limo to shreds, a pulse of white noise that momentarily drowned rational thought. Both the ambassador and Makoto clapped hands to their ears and the limousine slewed sideways on the road.

* * *

Asuka felt the pulse as much as she heard it. She turned in her seat and, looking back through the rear window, she saw the limousine skew and then right itself on the road, before it skidded again as another pulse of sound radiated from it. The pulse was like a wail of machine static, even as it felt like a shriek of torment.

"What's happening?!" shouted Asuka over her link.

"I don't know!" replied Misato.

"It sounds like screaming," added Rei.

"Rei!" said Asuka, turning forward in her seat. "We're going out there!"

"Wait!" said Misato, "we don't know what we're dealing with, yet! Makoto!"

"Still alive," replied Makoto, rather too loudly, "though I'm afraid you're going to have to speak up. My hearing seems to have taken a knock..."

"Is the Angel still contained?"

"Negative," replied Makoto, "the case Maya constructed is fried. I'm getting no information from it... It could emerge at any second!"

"Stop the convoy," said Misato, "we're evacuating. Asuka, Rei, –"

"Wait!" cried Asuka. " _We_ can contain it! Rei and I. The eva gear! We'll force an AT field around it!"

"But that will leave the convoy defenceless to outside attack," replied Misato.

"Do you want this thing or not?" asked Asuka. Misato was silent. That was enough of an answer for the German. "We're going out!"

She pulled the release that blew the door of the modified limousine and climbed out of the speeding vehicle, pulling herself onto the roof. Across the top of Makoto's car, she saw Rei was doing the same.

"Whatever happens, don't stop this convoy," said Asuka. Then, at the exact same moment as Rei, she leapt.

The power assists in her leg armour made her soar through the air, coming down on the roof of Makoto's limousine. Rei did the same and they clashed together in an embrace as they landed, fighting to keep themselves on top of the swerving car.

"Open the doors, Makoto!" cried Asuka.

Both side doors opened and two faces peered out, one considerably paler and more terrified looking. Each releasing the other, Asuka and Rei rolled in opposite directions and swung in through the open doors feet first. The ambassador stumbled backwards in surprise, falling onto the floor of the vehicle, narrowly missing landing on the case, which now appeared to be glowing with heat. He scrambled away from it, whimpering. The interior of the limousine was like an oven, though heat was now escaping from the open doors.

"Rei!" shouted Asuka, moving to the case.

"Do it, Asuka!" agreed the blue haired girl, right beside her.

They both expanded AT fields, directing them at the case on the floor.

Another pulse of noise exploded from the case, but suddenly it sounded muffled. The sound died, quickly and without strength. Immediately, the temperature in the limousine dropped several degrees. Asuka gritted her teeth, forcing her field inwards as Rei did the same.

"They have it!" said Makoto's voice over the radio.

"Increase speed!" ordered Misato. "Get us back to HQ!"

"Commander Katsuragi!" cried her driver in alarm. She pushed her way to the front of the vehicle so she could see out of the windscreen at what had caused the man's exclamation.

On the road ahead, a figure stood. It was dressed in a long cape coat of midnight black and wore a mask that gave the sinister impression of a skull in abstract form. The figure appeared unconcerned at the vehicles speeding towards it.

"I'll ram him!" said the Driver, pushing his foot forward on the accelerator. The command vehicle lurched forwards, quickly picking up speed.

The figure hunched, its cape coat billowing up in a phantom breeze. Misato's eyes widened in recognition.

"Wait!" she cried. "Don't! Avoid it!"

But it was too late to swerve, too late to avoid the monster in the road. Misato flinched back, expecting the storm to hit the command vehicle at any moment.

Something dark hit the Angel in the road, something half seen, black with the merest flash of white. The storm never came, nor did the impact of collision. The Angel was knocked flying, tangling with the black object, and was lost to view down the side of the command vehicle.

"Zeruel!" shouted Misato. "That was Zeruel! Where did it go?"

"I can't see it," replied the driver, looking in his mirrors. "It's gone!"

The machine gun on the top of the humvee at the rear of the convoy opened up briefly and then was silenced.

"Did we get it?" asked Misato.

"No," replied the Driver listening to his radio, "the gunner couldn't hit it. Both Zeruel and the unknown object have disappeared into a side alley.

Misato gritted her teeth.

"Keep driving," she instructed him. Then over the radio she instructed the rest of the convoy to keep a look out for Zeruel and other potential Angels, before returning to her seat and slumping into it with a sigh.

"General," she radioed, "get HQ to despatch clean-up teams. Discharged automatic ammunition and possible tyre tracks. Tell them to be careful."

"Understood," rumbled Forster.

* * *

"Stage six integration complete."

The female voice of the general address system spoke the words with a deadpan insouciance that completely failed to capture the tension of the situation: the convoy was mere minutes away and Disciple was still in the final stages of powering up. It seemed there had been an incident en-route and the proto-Angel had slipped the bonds of its prison transport. It was more urgent than ever that the supercomputer worked and worked now.

Maya stood in one of the elevators as it whisked them upwards, towards street level and the hidden facility entrance that the convoy were speeding towards. She needed to be there, because she needed to see the device working. The device she had made.

Cho stood at her side, her laptop held open so they could both watch the progress of the reboot while they rushed to meet Misato and the others.

"Final integration stage initialising," intoned the computerised voice. "Opening dialogue channels. Networking cores. Conflict detected. Resolving..."

Maya clenched her jaw. A conflict so early in the last stage was not a good sign.

Up until this point, the reboot had been progressing smoothly. The cores had powered up, had accepted their situation and identity and had integrated with their individual systems. The final stage of integration was simple. The cores themselves had to agree to merge. Each individual within Disciple had to recognise the function and necessity of the other eleven cores. The problem child would be Judas. It was always Judas. Not because he rejected the others, but because they rejected him. His function was complicated, but (in Maya's mind at least) entirely necessary. It was getting the other cores to realise that fact which was proving the final stumbling block.

Peter was the key. He was the rock on which all the other cores depended and the only core that understood Judas's true function. If Disciple were to function as one, it would be down to Peter convincing the others. In the previous three attempts at bringing the supercomputer online, he had spectacularly failed to do so.

The elevator doors hissed open in front of them and she and Cho ran down the short length of corridor that led them to exterior security and the secure garage. As the guards there checked them through, Maya asked about the status of the device.

"The technicians set it up as per your specifications," replied the guard, "there's a whole team of them out there..."

"And the convoy?"

"Arriving any second."

Maya nodded and pressed out into the secure garage, Cho following on behind. The room was large, meant for embarking and debarking vehicles of significant size. A wide, shuttered door filled one wall, a tunnel leading down into the facility branched off another. In the centre of the room, a tall contraption sat, fat cables and heat-pipes trailing from it into the tunnel entrance, down and away. The device looked like a wide doorway, with a heavy metal frame, but no handle or hinges, and sat on a technological plinth covered in monitors, keyboards and lights. The 'door' itself appeared to be constructed of smooth, featureless stone, and what looked like telescopic light fixtures attached to the frame all pointed inwards to the centre of the blank stone façade.

A gaggle of technicians crowded around the device and another clustered around the shuttered door, awaiting the arrival of the convoy.

"Conflict resolved," stated the laptop in Cho's hands. As close to the city as the secure garage was, the general address system was not in operation here, for fear of alerting residents and locals beyond the shuttered door. The voice sounded small and unsure on the micro speakers of the laptop.

"Conflict detected," stated the laptop again.

"It's not going to work," muttered Cho. Maya glanced at her. The girl might have been right. If further conflicts could not be sorted out, the cores might start turning on one another again. That would inevitably lead to stronger cores overpowering weaker ones. When that had started happening before, they had shut down before things had gone too far. They could no longer afford to do that. Worst case scenario was the subjugation or even destruction of individual cores in order to achieve some sort of equilibrium, but that would mean the loss of vital processing power and lead to a fundamentally unstable gestalt personality.

"Conflict resolved," stated the laptop. They waited tensely for further conflicts to arise. They waited for a long time.

"Final integration stage complete."

Cho let out a little yelp of triumph and Maya sagged in relief. However, any further celebrations were cut short as the shuttered door rolled up.

"Get that device online!" Maya yelled to the technicians. "Quickly! We're out of time!"

Now they just had to hope Disciple didn't object to what they were about to do.

* * *

The command vehicle rounded the corner into the wide alleyway and rolled swiftly towards the fencing at the far end. As they approached, showing no signs of slowing, the chain-link fence suddenly retracted into the ground, leaving the way to a yawning shutter door clear. Technicians had spilled out into the alleyway when the doorway had rolled up, waiting in excitement for their charges to arrive.

"Asuka, is it still under control?" asked Misato.

Asuka's voice in reply was tight with strain.

"Just tell me Disciple is ready for us! I don't know how much longer we can suppress this thing!"

The command vehicle swept into the garage, followed closely by the limousines and the humvee. Each of the vehicles peeled off and parked smartly, leaving the ambassador's limousine to head straight for the device.

The shutter door rolled back down, all of the technicians from the alley having re-entered the garage after the convoy. In the confusion, nobody noticed that another technician, this one wearing black tinted goggles that obscured his eyes and much of his face, had joined the throng...

Misato and her soldiers debarked in time to see the limousine pull to a halt before the strange contraption. She headed straight towards the figures of Maya and her assistant, becoming aware of the flashing warning lights that had started up almost as soon as the vehicles had arrived. Distantly, a warning klaxon could be heard, sounding from further into the base.

"Disciple detected the presence of Sandalphon as soon as you arrived," said Maya as Misato joined her. The soldiers surrounded the car, aiming their rifles at the doors.

"We don't know for sure it's Sandalphon, yet," replied Misato.

"What other Angel could it be?" asked Cho.

Misato ignored the question and instead looked at the device.

"Is it working?"

"It's coming online now," answered Maya. "Disciple is resolving the dilemma of using it as we speak."

As she spoke, the device began to hum, the sound quickly rising to a high pitched whine. The light fixtures on the frame flickered on, though no light played across the surface of the stone doorway.

"If you've miscalculated..." began Misato.

"Then a lot more than Nerv HQ will suddenly cease to exist," finished Maya. She flashed Misato a smile. "Disciple won't let it go that far. If I've made a mistake, Disciple will shut it down."

"As long as you haven't made a mistake with Disciple," muttered Misato.

A black spot, like a dot of darkest ink had appeared in the centre of the doorway. It slowly spread, like an oil slick, across the surface of the stone until a circular disc of purest black, approximately three feet wide, had formed.

"A Dirac sea..." breathed Misato, in amazement. "It worked."

The door of the limousine opened and Asuka and Rei emerged, carrying the case between them. It appeared heavier than it had any right to be: both lugged it like it was a tree trunk, freshly felled from the oldest of oak forests. Steam rose from where their armoured hands contacted the case's handle.

"Quickly!" gasped Asuka.

One of the technicians ran forward and attached a tow cable to a side handle on the case. The line was attached to a reinforced spool and automatic winder which was built into the base of the device.

As the technician retreated, Asuka and Rei began staggering towards the device. As they reached the base, another pulse of shrieking noise engulfed the garage. All those present flinched and cowered, and those close to the case were even knocked to the floor.

The sound increased in volume as the Eva pilots dragged the case closer to the device. It was as if the occupant knew what was intended, where it was going. The scream intensified further.

Asuka yelled something that was lost in the raging noise then she and Rei heaved the case with all their strength. The metal box flew in a short arc through the air and vanished on contact with the disc of blackness at the centre of the device.

Immediately, the screaming sound was extinguished.

The the winch unrolled rapidly and then pulled taught and held. All that remained of the case was a cable plunging into the blackness of the circle.

In the sudden silence that followed, the second door to the limousine opened and the ambassador stumbled out, helped by Makoto.

"Insane," muttered the man, in a voice loud enough that all could hear. He staggered towards Misato who straightened herself and signalled for another limousine to be brought up. The new vehicle purred up beside them, even as the ambassador stuttered to a halt before her.

"You have my thanks, ambassador," she told him and offered her hand. The man just looked at it, then looked up at her face.

"You're all insane," he told her. Then he jerked around and stumbled back towards the waiting limousine with Makoto in tow. Misato called after her second-in-command.

"Makoto, see the ambassador to the Spire. Take the command vehicle and humvee, leave the limousines with blown doors."

Makoto saluted her with a smile.

"Worked out this time," he told her.

"This time," she agreed.

Misato watched them go and heaved a sigh of relief.

"All right, everyone, those that are on duty return to your posts. Everyone else, get some sleep."

Those assembled around her broke up and went their separate ways, some grumbling, some chatting animatedly. Asuka caught her eye and gave her a hard look, her eyebrows raised, but then did likewise. Misato was about to make her own way to bed, but then became aware of Rei standing awkwardly behind her. She had removed her helmet and held it loosely in one hand.

"Rei? Is something the matter?"

"Could I talk with you?" asked the girl.

"Go ahead," replied Misato.

"No..." said the Rei, glancing around at the technicians still working on the device.

She was standing clutching her arm just above the elbow, she wouldn't look at Misato. It was an unusual sight, but Rei was the picture of discomfiture.

"You want to go somewhere private? I was going to turn in," said Misato, then she sighed, "but I suppose a few more minutes of lost sleep won't make much difference. Why don't we go to my office?"

Rei finally did look at her. She nodded.

* * *

Five minutes later, they were walking into Misato's darkened office at the back of the command room. The automatic door slid shut behind them and Misato brought the lights up to a pleasant level.

"Do you want to sit?" she asked the younger girl. Rei shook her head. "Well, then I suppose you'll have to tell me what's wrong standing up."

The girl nodded.

Misato waited, a faint frown on her face. She was about to say something else when Rei finally spoke up.

"Asuka told me... when I needed support, I should ask."

"That sounds like good advice," replied Misato, wondering where this was going. She waited until Rei spoke again.

"Misato-san. What do dreams mean?"

"Dreams?" asked Misato, looking puzzled. The blue haired girl merely nodded. "Why are you asking me? Isn't this the sort of thing you'd want to talk to Asuka about?"

"I can't talk to Asuka about this," replied Rei, simply. When she elaborated no further, Misato frowned harder.

"What do dreams _mean_? Well, they don't necessarily mean anything... they're supposed to be jumbled up memories, events from the day, pieces of long term memory, that kind of thing. I think they're also supposed to be rehearsals for certain emotional or physical situations. Fight or flight, that kind of thing. I read somewhere that the feeling of falling you sometimes get when you are half asleep is a throw-back to when we were primates living in trees."

Rei looked confused.

"You never get that?" asked Misato, to which the girl shook her head. Misato sighed. She often forgot how different Rei was, beyond the blue hair and the placid demeanour. "Am I right in saying you've had a dream that you didn't like?"

Rei looked awkward again.

"I've had... more than one," she agreed. "Since coming to Nerv. A recurring dream."

"Is Asuka in it?" asked Misato, suddenly understanding. "Is that why you can't talk to her about it?" Rei looked up, surprised. She nodded.

"Asuka is there. Shinji is, too."

"They aren't... together?" asked Misato, feeling uncomfortable for a moment. But Rei shook her head.

"Shinji is alone. He won't look at me. But Asuka..." she stopped. "Dreams don't tell you what will happen in the future, do they?"

There was real alarm in her eyes, and suddenly Misato felt some concern for the young girl. She stepped forwards, taking hold of the girl's shoulders.

"No," she said, "dreams aren't prophetic. There isn't anything mystical about them. Like I say, they're a jumble of memories and emotions. You're scared for Asuka, aren't you?"

Rei dropped her head again and nodded.

"I see her... dead. I see blood and I can feel something coming. Something I can't see."

Misato pulled her into an embrace.

"It's just anxiety," she told Rei, "just your dreams manifesting your fears for Asuka. She's important to you, isn't she?"

Rei nodded.

"You... love her, don't you?"

"I... don't know what love is..." replied Rei, quietly, "but I think so. Yes."

Misato pushed her to arms length again and looked at her seriously.

"Does she know?"

This seemed to take Rei by surprise, as if she couldn't conceive of Asuka not knowing something she knew.

"Why wouldn't she?"

"Because she's an idiot!" replied Misato. "Haven't you figured that out yet? She's like Shinji, she gets wrapped up in herself and doesn't see what effect her actions have on other people. Though, I'll admit, she has got a lot better since... well, since you came back."

"What should I do?"

Misato regarded the young girl for a while, then made a decision. She crossed to her large desk and opened a drawer, taking out two keycards.

"I was going to save this until things had calmed down a little, but..." she shrugged. "I guess things will never calm down until the Angels are gone."

She handed the cards to Rei.

"One for you and one for Asuka. She said you could move in together. I hope she's right and you don't end up killing each other..."

Rei looked at the cards in her hand.

"It's a nice place," said Misato, "I picked it out myself. It's not huge and it has a direct elevator entrance into Nerv HQ, but... well, at least it's on the surface."

The young girl looked up, her eyes shining. There was the simplest, most genuine of smiles on her face that was warming to look at. It quite astonished the commander.

"Thank you, Misato," said Rei.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Angel of Thunder.**

Misato stepped over the debris lying on the floor, the exploded concrete and the strewn cabling, walking along the corridor until she stood over the Angel struggling and crawling on the blasted ground. The jagged, fractured aspect to the air faded as she approached her foe. She looked down at the thing at her feet and the Angel met her gaze with blank eyes. It said something to her, but she didn't hear it. A distance away, Maya said something as well, but she didn't hear that either. All speech was blotted out by the incandescent rage flooding through her head.

She aimed her pistol and fired.

* * *

The sirens wailed, the emergency lights flashed, Maya sighed.

"Shut it down."

As the lights in the command room returned to normal and the siren was banished, Misato turned a slight frown on the chief technician.

"Still no change?"

Maya shook her head.

"No. Your security teams have swept the base countless times, I've gone through every line of Disciple's code and even so it happens every time we bring the detection systems online. For some reason, Disciple identifies an Angel in close proximity and triggers the alarms. But it's always non-localised, like it's chasing phantoms. Nothing I do seems to affect it."

"You're absolutely sure there's nothing wrong with Disciple?" asked Misato.

"You're absolutely sure there are no Angels attacking HQ?" asked Maya ironically, eyebrows raised.

The command room was muted. It was the late morning shift, but there was a minimum level of command staff and technicians present due to the work being carried out on Disciple. Those that were present were fully engrossed in the task of tuning and testing. Misato leant against her command chair, sipping from a mug of coffee as she watched Maya and her technicians work at a nearby terminal.

"It would seem your theory about the specimen room was right, then," said Misato, "Disciple is detecting the Angel remains, maybe even Sandalphon."

Maya shook her head.

"I don't think it's Sandalphon," she replied. "The Dirac Sea is a gateway to another dimension, another form of physical space. Theoretically, there shouldn't be any way for Disciple to obtain readings from beyond that boundary."

"Shamshel and Matarael, then," replied Misato.

Maya pursed her lips.

It was possible. Not exactly probable... but perhaps the Angel material in the storage tanks of the science facility was somehow producing enough of a signature to confuse Disciple into thinking there was a live Angel on the base. It would more likely be due to Matarael – not much more than scraps of Shamshel remained. Matarael, however, was a virtually intact specimen and remarkable for it. Teams of biologists were already working to discover the link between the original Angel's form and these new, potentially Angel-human hybrids. Rapid breakthroughs were being made, and in truth the scientific departments didn't yet have the capacity to follow up all of their discoveries properly. Even so, the most remarkable of these discoveries had been the most disturbing. During the fight in the storage room, the bullet fired from Misato's pistol that had ended Matarael's life had passed straight through whatever passed for the Angel's brain, killing it instantly. And yet...

And yet, the puncture wound had begun to close.

Not quickly, not in any way that suggested imminent danger. But there had been a measurable shrinkage of the wound by a factor of between four and five percent in the weeks after Misato had killed it. The discovery had caused something of a panic at the time, but it was further discovered that changing the chemical composition of the preserving fluid in Matarael's tank halted the progress of the regeneration – if that's truly what it was.

Maybe this regeneration was what was triggering Disciple to detect an Angel presence on the base, maybe not... but it was something that needed an eye keeping on, just in case.

And then there was the head of Unit 02. Could the head itself have become contaminated in some way after its encounter with the mass produced Eva series? The mysterious activation that had occurred during Matarael's attack had turned out to be less mysterious than it had first appeared: one of the technicians had been running an experiment with a timed activation of certain systems within the Eva. It had been mere happy coincidence that it had completed its power cycle at that very moment, but even so... its response had been beyond what had been expected in the technician's design documentation.

Now that the Dirac Sea device (what many of the scientists and engineers had started calling the 'Ibuki Device') had been moved from the garage to the storage facility, the specimen room had rapidly become the most important room on the base, save perhaps for the command room itself. But it was also the most problematic, especially if it was the source of the signature that was triggering Disciple's alarms.

"Maybe the answer is just to raise the threshold on the sensors..." Maya mused, leaning over the terminal she was working at. "It'll mean less time to react to an Angel, but a more accurate detection if one does appear." She sighed again. "Truth be told, our technology isn't what it was before Third Impact. We're having issues fine tuning the detection systems and it doesn't help that the Angels are so much smaller and their signatures so much weaker. We can detect the presence of an angel, but we can't currently pinpoint it within a space smaller than several city blocks. And we have nothing like full coverage of the city above. If we had more satellites, maybe –"

Maya stopped as Misato rested a hand on her shoulder. She had put her coffee mug down and moved to her chief's side.

"You're doing everything you can," the commander told her, "and you're overworking yourself. Perhaps you should get some rest. This can wait."

"Is that an order?" asked Maya, straightening.

"A request from a friend," replied Misato, "besides, you'll be no good to anyone if you end up collapsing. Let your staff carry on the testing."

Maya gave her a tired smile.

"Thank you, Misato, I do appreciate your concern... but how could I possibly face Ritsuko-senpai if I let my juniors do my work for me?"

Misato grimaced, but didn't say anything about how Ritsuko had been a demoness workaholic, how her work had consumed her and led to such huge errors in judgement before the end. She didn't say anything about how cold her friend could be, how callous to her charges – and even to those that cared about her.

She didn't say any of these things, because she had been no better. She had no right to bad mouth Ritsuko, when her own errors had been as bad, if not worse – even if she was now trying to correct those errors. Anyway, Maya had idolised the late Doctor. Misato also had no desire to sour their current relationship with petty attacks on Ritsuko's character.

And besides, despite their respective flaws, Ritsuko had been her friend. In spite of everything, she missed her terribly.

Misato realised Maya was watching her as she mused on these things.

"Sorry," she apologised, "I was miles away..."

"You know, you should really be taking your own advice," Maya told her. "When was the last time you stepped away from the command room? I see you here all hours of the day and that's when you're not checking on the progress reports in the science departments."

 _She's got me there,_ thought Misato.

"Unfortunately, my duties seem to keep throwing up more and more ways to keep me at my desk..." she looked at her watch, then looked up as the main doors opened and Asuka entered. The girl looked to be in a bad mood. "Speaking of which, another duty calls."

"The trio?" asked Maya, a slight smile on her lips.

"The trio," agreed Misato and she sighed. "It's getting to the point where I can't ignore them any more, and Forster has been on my back about getting them reactivated. I swear I see them whenever I leave restricted areas nowadays. I'll be seeing them in my sleep soon... Where they get their information on where I'll be at any given time is a mystery!"

She stepped away from Maya and began crossing the room to her second-in-command.

"Oh, Doctor Coulsen wanted to see you," Maya called after her, "she said she'd be in the specimen room for most of the day..."

Misato waved over her shoulder in an offhand way. The Doctor wasn't very high on her list of priorities right now.

* * *

Two minutes later, she was in her office, seated behind her desk as she waited for 'the trio' (as many members of Nerv had begun to call them, due to the fact they were always seen together) to arrive.

"Do I have to be here for this?" asked Asuka, looking sullen as she leant against the wall behind Misato's desk, hands thrust deep into her jacket pockets. She wore her red plug-suit, having just come from the science department directly after undergoing eva-gear stress tests, but had pulled on the dark jacket to provide a bit more modesty when walking around the base. The jacket was twinned with a similarly dark cap, with little cat ears and a wide peak, which Asuka had pulled down low over her eyes. Misato had no idea where either item had come from.

"You're supposed to be my right hand, Asuka," replied Misato from her seated position. "Isn't that what you wanted when you asked to be my direct subordinate?"

"I thought Makoto was your right hand," replied the German.

"I have two hands, Asuka," said Misato, "he's the one I turn to for technical support. You're the one I turn to for tactical support. He is my brain. You are my heart. You're both essential to me."

Asuka turned a glare against the wall, blushing slightly.

"... I don't think they like me," she muttered. Misato chuckled.

"They don't have to _like_ you..." she said. "They do, however, have to respect you."

Asuka's voice dropped to a fierce whisper.

" _I don't think they respect me, either..._ "

The door to her office opened and the three members of Daemon marched in. Or rather, two of them marched and the third limped. All three of them walked to the desk and stood smartly to attention, even the one who had been so severely injured. He was a tall man, of Japanese descent, though his file told her he had lived in America for much of his life. His face was thin and serious, and his demeanour efficient and precise, despite the wounds he had yet to fully recover from. Though it was covered by his uniform, Misato knew that the flesh beneath was a mottled patchwork of dermal grafts and synthetic skin. She had seen it first-hand after treatment had been administered to the soldier in the days after Shamshel attacked. Though the Angel had been the cause of the grievous injuries, it had been human weapons that had inflicted them. There was an irony in that which Misato found unsettling.

Forster followed the trio, and took up a position near the door, waiting quietly. Even so, he was a forbidding presence in the room.

"You know what I've called you here for?" asked Misato, turning her attention to the trio in front of her.

The soldiers held themselves erect, still proud despite all they had suffered.

"We do, ma'am," replied the female.

 _Chiyoko Isuzu..._

This one had assumed the role of CO of the beleaguered little band of soldiers. She was also of Japanese descent, though like her comrade, had spent her formative years in the United States, before Third Impact. She, like all the others in Daemon, was special forces originally. She was fairly young, but not so young that she wouldn't have remembered the turmoil of Second Impact all those years ago. Misato wondered if the scar across the girl's jaw was a memento from that time, and fought the brief urge to reach for her own stomach and the mark on her skin below the uniform jacket she presently wore.

She gave herself a mental shake and looked instead to the second member of Daemon.

"How are your injuries?" she asked the tall Japanese. He flexed his arm and stretched, before returning to attention. Even though he hid it well, she could see the stiffness and pain in the movement.

"All better," said the man.

"Is that so...?" replied Misato, arching an eyebrow. She looked down at his file in front of her on the desk.

 _Sho Akagi_...

"You know the medical staff are saying your recovery is nothing short of a miracle? Some of the doctors I spoke to expressed doubt you'd even walk again, let alone pick up a rifle."

The tall man didn't say anything, he just stared directly ahead, expression unreadable.

 _Doesn't speak much, this one..._

"You're good at being stoic, it seems, but don't think I'm blind. How well do you expect to fare in a combat situations if you're still in so much pain?"

"He'll be fine –" began Chiyoko, before Misato cut her off.

"I wasn't speaking to you," she said, "I was talking to your colleague."

"Our colleague doesn't tend to talk all that much much," piped up the man on the other end of the line, "he prefers to do his talking with a rifle or a combat knife. Though he talks a good game with a football as well. That's _football_ , mind, not soccer – those yanks haven't snuffed out the proper way of saying that, just yet..."

And this was Malcolm Jarrett – known as Mal to his friends. Which seemed to be half the base already. He was young, British and had a full head of pale blonde hair, and was the only member to escape the fight with Shamshel without injury. He was also notorious for being a comedian and being unable to take anything seriously. How he had ever found his way into an elite special forces unit, Misato might never understand.

Misato glared at him until he stopped talking then addressed all three.

"How can any of you three expect me to add you to my personnel roster here at Nerv? You're half dead, Akagi, and you two have reputations for being rebellious and unmanageable. That's right, isn't it, Forster?" she asked the general.

"As you say ma'am," he replied. "They're unruly and uncouth. But they're second to none at getting the job done."

"The job to be done is defeating Angels," replied Misato, "and you spectacularly failed to do that last time out. In the end, you had to be bailed out by two teenage girls!"

Misato could feel the waves of annoyance fairly radiating off the girl behind her at that last statement. The three soldiers in front of her stiffened and she saw Isuzu's jaw clench. She hid a smile.

"Be that as it may... General Forster has consented to have you placed under my direct command. I just have to decide what to do with you..."

"Ma'am, with respect, the only thing we want to know is whether you'll let us kill Angels." Chiyoko Isuzu was glaring with undisguised dislike at Asuka. For her part, the German looked away, feigning indifference.

The other two members of Daemon stood straighter at her words, identical looks of determination on their faces.

"You seem resolved on this," mused Misato.

"We are, ma'am," replied the female, returning her gaze to the commander.

Misato sat forward.

"Good. Just so you understand, I expect your total obedience. The first sign I see of you acting on your own, I will personally remove you from Nerv HQ and throw you on a boat back to the US. Do you understand?"

"Yes ma'am," said Chiyoko, a look of triumph growing on her face.

"Very well. Your security status will be upgraded to 'Nerv special operative'. Report to HR for assignment of permanent quarters and access to the equipment on the base. I'll allow you to keep the name 'Daemon'. It seems a fitting name for you three. When angels turn on humanity, I guess all we have to turn to are daemons. Make sure you live up to that name in our fight against them."

All three of the soldiers replied in unison.

"Yes ma'am!"

Misato nodded.

"Consider yourselves reactivated."

She sat back in her chair and glanced at Forster.

"You are dismissed," growled the general.

The trio turned on their heels and marched to the door. When it opened, they found a slightly startled looking Rei blocking the way.

"Out of the way, girl," grated Chiyoko as she pushed past her. Forster directed a stiff nod to Misato – the man's idea of a 'thank you', perhaps – then followed his old unit.

When they had gone, Rei entered the room. Asuka immediately went over to her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "I thought you were at home today... They didn't call you in for additional tests, did they?"

"Ah, yes," said Misato, standing up, "how are things going in the new apartment? Are things working out well? I must come and see it sometime."

"They're fine," replied Rei, her tone neutral, "although Asuka always leaves her clothes and underwear all over the floor. I'm always having to clear up after her."

"Rei!" exclaimed Asuka, blushing bright crimson, "you don't need to tell her that!" She glared over her shoulder at Misato. "We'll talk about Daemon later, Misato. Come on Rei."

She grabbed the blue haired girl by the hand and marched out of the office, admonishing her surprised looking comrade for embarrassing her in front of other people.

When they had gone, Misato chuckled to herself.

"They're getting to be more and more like an old married couple..."

* * *

Maya called a greeting to the pair as they made their way through the command room. Asuka waved at her, but didn't slow as she pulled Rei along towards the double doors.

"Have you eaten yet?" asked Asuka, not looking at Rei.

"No," replied Rei.

"I have to do a couple of things first," said Asuka, "but why don't we go to the canteen for lunch?"

"Okay," replied Rei.

"So, was it tests?" asked Asuka, "I told you, if they ask you to do tests, you should just say no. Misato promised me you wouldn't have to worry about them."

That was why she herself was in the science facility, what was now officially codenamed 'Logos Omega' (the command room itself was now codenamed 'Logos Alpha'), all hours of the day. Privately, she had resolved to take all of the testing on herself, at least everything that didn't personally require Rei's presence: things like plug suit adjustments, for example. Or anything to do with Rei's personal equipment.

But apart from that, she would be damned if Nerv was going to subject Rei to the kinds of trials she had suffered in Gendo Ikari's time. She would no longer be a puppet – no, she had _never_ been a puppet to begin with. She was Rei and that was enough.

"It wasn't for tests," replied Rei, as the double doors opened before them. "I finished the chores and there was nothing else to do. You told me to do what I wanted. I wanted to see you. You always seem to be too busy these days..."

Asuka looked at Rei with wide eyes, then turned her gaze to the floor, suddenly feeling guilty. They came to a halt and Asuka released her hand.

"I'm sorry," she muttered.

"Yeah, you Nerv lot always have something to be sorry about," said a new voice.

They both looked up and found their way blocked by the three members of Daemon. Chiyoko had been the one that had spoken. She stood glaring at the pair, hands on her hips.

"What do _you_ want?" asked Asuka, straightening and returning the woman's glare.

"We have names, you know," replied the woman. "Chiyoko. This is Sho and Mal."

The fair haired man raised a hand and gave a half apologetic grin. The Japanese man merely regarded them coolly.

"I know who you are," replied Asuka, "I asked what it was you wanted?"

Chiyoko gave them a dismissive smirk. Then she stepped forward until she was right in front of Asuka. She stood about half a foot taller than the German, but Asuka glared right back up at her, refusing to be cowed.

"Shuya Sakamoto," said Chiyoko. "Anders Frisk. Jake Speight. You'd better remember the names. They're the names of my team, the ones you let die." She jabbed a finger in Asuka's chest. "I'm going to get revenge for them. I'll kill every last Angel, even if it means going through you to do it. Both of you." She turned away and called to the others. "Come on let's go."

The tall man regarded them, coldly, for a further moment. Then he turned and limped after the antagonistic woman. The second man didn't, however. He waited until his compatriots had moved a distance away, then drew conspiratorially close.

"She's grateful that you saved us," he whispered. He grinned at their unconvinced expressions and scratched the back of his head. "Really. Sho too. And me. Thank you for killing that Angel before it killed all of us!"

The combative female shouted at him from down the corridor.

"Mal! Leave them alone!"

"Well, nice to meet you two, anyway," he said, backing up. He turned and jogged after his compatriots, Chiyoko berating him as they left.

In the silence that followed, Rei looked at Asuka, confusion on her face.

"We didn't kill Shamshel, though..."

* * *

Koga suspected he was in trouble when Kuro Suzuki breezed into the office with a big smile on his face.

"It's a quarter to two, where have you been all day?" growled Koga as he looked over the file in his hand: a dispute at a bar that turned into an ugly altercation, leaving one man with severe cuts to his forearm.

"I've been at the lab," replied Suzuki, hanging his jacket on his wheeled chair and sitting down. Koga eyed him, carefully, trying not to look at the folder clutched in the younger man's hand.

"Really?" he asked, turning his attention back to the case he was studying – if 'studying' could really be the word for it. It seemed pretty open-shut.

Suzuki dragged his chair over to Koga's desk and sat looking at his partner. Koga ignored him.

"What are you looking at?" asked the detective.

"Affray, simple case, fight at a bar while drunk and disorderly."

"Why did that get handed to you?" frowned the sergeant.

"The victim was on the emergency housing committee. Inoguchi wants to make sure everything's done right."

"Right..." said Suzuki, then trailed off. The moments stretched uncomfortably longer, until Koga couldn't take it any more.

"Look, Kuro –"

"Don't you want to know why I've been at the lab?" asked Suzuki, suddenly.

"Not particularly..." muttered Koga.

"There was an incident, about a month ago, one that nobody seems to know about."

Koga dropped the case file to his desk with a sigh.

"Go on," he said, in a tired voice.

Suzuki grinned and opened his folder, placing a photograph on the desk. It was a building site, apparently abandoned. Koga looked at it.

"What am I looking at?" he asked.

"It's a building site."

"I can see that..."

Suzuki grinned again.

"The Council and the EHC have been building apartment blocks at a rate of knots in order to ease the pressure in the slums. This building site was for one of those blocks, but was shut down for a period of two weeks about a month ago," he said. "In that time, no one was allowed on or off the site. Why do you think that was?"

"I'm sure you're about to tell me..."

Suzuki shook his head.

"I don't know. No one seems to. There was no report filed, no mention in the logbooks of any incidents, no explosion or leak that would keep people from building that apartment block."

"What does that have to do with you going to the lab?" asked Koga.

"It doesn't. Not directly. Look, I'm getting to that..."

He placed a photo of a rugged looking middle aged man on Koga's desk.

"This man worked on that site as a labourer. As far as I can tell, he hasn't been heard from or seen since that two week hiatus."

Koga glanced at his own file. The drunken perpetrator in the affray case had been yelling something about a missing family member...

Suzuki placed a series of other photographs on top of the first.

"This man too. And this one. And this one. No one seems to know where they are. Not even their family members."

He sat back, looking at Koga. The captain stared at the photos for a minute.

"Have any missing person reports been filed?" he asked.

"No..."

"Have any bodies been found?" he asked.

Suzuki sat forward again, frowning in annoyance.

"No, but–"

"Have any of their loved ones even asked the police to investigate?"

"No, but don't you think that's even stranger? They don't know where their family members are, but they won't ask anyone to find them?"

"Perhaps they don't trust us..."

Kuro sat back again. After a considered pause he spoke again.

"Don't you want to know what happened to Naoko-san?"

Koga knew what Suzuki was trying to do. He was trying to get a rise out of him, he was trying to needle him with guilt. Koga had only met Mizuho Naoko once, but that single encounter had had more of an effect on him than he cared to admit. Something in her had stirred feelings of a... kindred spirit, almost? He had been greatly disturbed by her disappearance, even when the friend Suzuki had left her with that night Asuka Langley Sohryu and Maya Ibuki also apparently fled the city, had told him Naoko-san had left town.

The woman had been cautious when he had visited her, she hadn't let him enter her apartment, even when he had shown her his badge. She hadn't seemed scared, or particularly fearful for her friend's safety, however. And, after giving a few short answers to Koga's questions, she had excused herself and closed the door in his face.

So, certainly, he had been affected by Mizuho Naoko's disappearance, even if he had absolutely no evidence of any wrongdoing. Suzuki was using this concern he felt, and quite skilfully, too. Koga, however, wouldn't take the bait. The old man had warned him off. He trusted Inoguchi with his life. He was as close to a father as he had ever known.

"Naoko-san left Kaibyaku," muttered Koga.

Suzuki snorted, stood up and began pacing around the room. He was getting visibly agitated.

"There's something else. You remember the ambassador's arrival earlier this month?"

Koga nodded.

"What of it."

"Didn't it strike you as a little strange?"

"Why would it?"

"It was in the middle of the night."

Koga pursed his lips, staring at the report still in his hand.

"And?" he replied, not looking at his partner.

"Well... why?" asked Suzuki. "Why would they do that? They made a real meal of showing off the ambassador's departure, ties reforged and all that political bullshit. Why not do the same for the arrival, if it's such a big deal? I don't believe they couldn't have organised flights that would have arrived during the daytime."

"Maybe the flight was delayed by bad weather?"

Kuro shook his head.

"I checked the flight plan against the weather conditions that day. It was blue skies all the way across the pacific. So I started checking into the actual arrival."

He picked up his laptop and placed it on Koga's desk, opening it in front of the captain. He selected a video file from a folder on his desktop marked 'Ambassador' and played it. It was a recorded video of the local, early morning news feed from that day. Television was making its way back into people's homes, as the thirst for local and international news grew while the country stabilised. This was the Council run news broadcast – no commercial television stations had yet been set up, though there was talk of that happening in the not too distant future.

The footage showed the ambassador's arrival, the unremarkable looking man descending the portable steps from his private flight, before shaking hands with a few local VIPs then making his way to the line of limousines and getting in the centre-most vehicle. Suzuki pointed at the screen.

"This was the footage that was shown on the morning news programme. You don't see much, the angles are quite bad in some cases. So I got in touch with a friend in charge of editing at the television centre and asked if there was any more footage. Apparently there were three other cameras, three other feeds that night. According to my friend, they were all better in terms of angles and obstructions, but his boss insisted on this one." He tapped the screen. "With a bit of persuasion I managed to get him to send me the other, unused feeds, on the condition it went no further than me. He was right. They're all better, they show more. More close-ups, that kind of thing. So why? Why this particular feed? What does it show that the others don't?"

"I'm guessing you have the answer," grumbled Koga.

"It's not what it shows, it's what it _doesn't_. Watch."

Koga did so as Suzuki played another feed. He watched the ambassador descend the steps once again, shake hands again, move to the car again. An aide opened the door and the man stooped as a brief exchange passed between the ambassador and someone already inside the limousine. Kuro paused the video at exactly that point.

"You see?" he asked.

"What am I supposed to be seeing," replied Koga, genuinely mystified and curious now in spite of himself.

"The man in the car, do you recognise him?"

Koga squinted.

"It's not very clear..." he said. Then he shook his head. "It's too blurry, the camera is too far away."

"Wait a second," said Suzuki as he pulled a still shot out of his folder and placed it on the desk. This picture was of the same view, but was much larger and clearer.

"I had the lab enhance the still frame," he said, "look again."

It still wasn't exactly clear, but a much stronger image could be discerned. The man in the car was leaning forward slightly, looking up out of the doorway at the stooping ambassador. He had short dark hair, nothing surprising in Japan, but he was also wearing glasses and an unfamiliar uniform...

Koga glanced up to see Suzuki was looking at him triumphantly.

"You tell me that's not Makoto Hyuga."

Koga looked back at the screen, then at the photo in front of him. The resemblance was strong, even through the blurry still. He cleared his throat.

"That could be a lot of different people," he began, "the image isn't clear enough to discern whether this is Hyuga, or merely someone who looks like him."

"Oh, come on!" replied the sergeant, pointing at the screen. "That is Makoto Hyuga. There are no records of him living in the city, I checked the registry office and the housing department. If he's here, and not on anyone's books, especially after all those cases last month, that can only mean one thing: Nerv."

Koga pushed the photo away and started to stand up.

"You're making leaps, now, sergeant. That could be anyone in that car–"

" _It's Rei!_ " interrupted Suzuki. "I know it is! She's come back and Nerv have had to reform in order to deal with the sit–"

"Kuro!" said Koga, forcefully, rising from his seat. The younger man was surprised into silence. Koga sighed. "You need to let this go, Kuro," he told him gently. "This is going to get you into trouble. Look... go and get us some coffees and calm down."

Suzuki stood staring at him, looking shocked.

"You _know_ something," he stated, flatly.

"I know no more than you do," replied Koga, in a gruff voice.

"Then the old man knows something and has told you to keep your nose out!" argued his partner.

"Look, just stop this!" said Koga, getting angry again. "Just stop! Hyuga is gone. Nerv is gone. Those days are gone. Those dark times are behind us. If you continue with this, continue trying to drag up the past and parade it around Kaibyaku's streets, you're just going to get yourself or others hurt! I'm telling you to _let it go!_ "

Suzuki stood staring at him for a long time.

"Is that an order from a superior?" he asked.

"No. It's a request from a friend," replied Koga, unknowingly echoing Misato Katsuragi's sentiment, if for completely different reasons. He forced himself to relax. "I don't want to be mixed up in any of this, either."

Suzuki made a sound of disgust and spun on his heel, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair.

"I'm going for a walk," he said.

"That might be a good idea," agreed the captain. "Take a break and cool off. Come back when you've calmed down."

But Suzuki had already marched out of the office, without looking back.

He didn't return to the station that day, or in fact the next.

* * *

It was several hours before Misato finally made it down to the scientific facilities of Logos Omega. It had actually been a relief when Makoto had arrived to take over her duties there, freeing her up to follow up on important work progressing in Omega. The flight department particularly had projects that interested her. With the arrival of the experts from the US and Europe, things were moving on there in leaps and bounds, though Asuka had voiced discontent at the nature of the work they were undertaking.

She also decided she probably ought to find out what Doctor Coulsen wanted, so she was heading first to the specimen room where the Angel remains were housed. Maya had long since quit the command room to continue her own experiments on the Ibuki Device, so perhaps she would also see her there.

As it turned out, Helen Coulsen found her first.

As she passed by an armoured door marked 'Theta Labs', a voice called from behind her. Misato turned to find the Doctor hurrying to catch up.

Something about Coulsen riled Misato, something she couldn't put her finger on. She was obviously capable, though not as experienced a member of the science department as Misato would have liked leading the med-sci team. Still, their options had been limited and various other personnel she respected had vouched for her, Maya among them. In the end, she had listened to them and appointed Coulsen to the post of head of science.

And yet, she had the feeling that Coulsen didn't quite stack up somehow, she kept expecting her to fail in some way, and kept feeling mildly exasperated when she didn't.

"Doctor," said Misato, stopping and turning fully. "You wanted to see me."

"If you have a minute?" replied the woman.

She was fairly young, though still a touch older than Misato. Her file had her down as thirty-five, though in Misato's opinion, she appeared (and acted) much younger than that. She was also pretty, with dark hair that framed her face in tumbling waves and a smattering of pale freckles.

"A minute spent talking is a minute away from my duties," replied Misato, a touch more stiffly than she had intended.

"Of course," replied Coulsen, pulling up short, "it's okay, if you have more important things to be getting on with..."

She began turning away and Misato relented slightly.

"It's fine, doctor, what did you want to say?"

"Actually," replied Coulsen, "I wanted to talk about you."

"Me?" asked Misato, surprised.

"Yes," said Coulsen. "You haven't been to your last three scheduled check-ups. I haven't seen you since the first one and that was nearly two months ago, shortly after... doctor Ito... and that was before I took over as head of science."

"I've been very busy," replied Misato, "and honestly, I don't see the point of biweekly appointments. If I'm okay

"Part of the reason for these check-ups is to monitor your psychological well-being, the stress of such a position as yours must be considerable, especially with the added burdens of responsibility for the future of the human race, I just feel its important you have as much support as –"

"Doctor Coulsen–" Misato broke in, before she too was interrupted.

"Helen, please."

" _Doctor Coulsen,_ " she repeated, firmly, "I am the commander of Nerv, charged with the safekeeping of the human race. I can assure you I understand fully my responsibilities and am capable of shouldering these so called 'burdens'. Your concern for my well-being is appreciated, but it is unnecessary, as are these constant check-ups."

"Then your absences aren't because of any particular issue you have with me or my work?"

Misato stopped short, regarding the doctor carefully.

"Of course not," she replied. "I appointed you to the position of head scientist, did I not?"

"Yes, but I am aware of whispers from many quarters. I'm aware that a lot of people think I'm too young for this position, too young and too inexperienced. Honestly speaking... I agree with them. I wasn't ready for this, which was why I was so reluctant to take the position when you offered it to me."

"If you felt this way, then why–"

"But I _did_ take the position," she continued. "And do you know why?"

Misato could only shake her head.

"Because of _you_. You and Maya – and even doctor Ritsuko. You're all younger than I am, yet you shoulder your responsibilities and force your way forward. You are my inspiration. I intend to do the same as you and I would appreciate it if you didn't make it harder for me to do so than it already is. So could you _please_ make your next appointment in a week's time."

Coulsen bowed in front of her in the traditional Japanese style when making a request. Misato stood, one eye twitching, looking at her.

"I will do my best," she said in a tight voice.

"Thank you," replied the doctor.

* * *

Five minutes later, Misato stalked into the specimen room and threw herself into a chair. Maya was working on the Ibuki Device, the benches and tables had been cleared to the walls to give the big piece of equipment plenty of room, but apart from that and the second tank now being filled, everything was as it was when Matarael had attacked. The armoured shutters that hid the head of Unit 02 from view were down and Misato let her baleful gaze linger on it for a few moments. She had no idea why she felt so frustrated.

"Problems?" asked Maya, glancing up.

"Nothing I can't handle," replied Misato. She forced herself to stretch and relax, then started again. "No, actually, ignore that. I guess my problem is I'm not sure I know how to deal with certain members of Nerv personnel."

"Helen seems like a nice person," replied Maya, shrewdly, "she's no Ritsuko-senpai, but at least she's pleasant."

"Right... 'Pleasant', 'nice', yes those are words that definitely apply to her. I wonder if that's really what we're looking for in a head of science?"

Maya shrugged.

"Can't hurt," she tried, with a smile. Misato's shoulders slumped.

"Oh, you're right I suppose," she sighed. "Enough about her; how are things going with your experiment?"

"You really want to know?" asked Maya, and when Misato nodded she returned to tinkering with the device. "I'm just making minor adjustments at the moment, the real experiment will start later this evening. We're attempting to map the confines of the Dirac Sea and locate Sandalphon within it. The space inside ought to be limitless, however we're getting strange energy readings that suggest the presence of Sandalphon is somehow affecting the nature of the negative field charge within..." she trailed off when she looked around at the expression on Misato's face. "It's complicated physics," she finished. "But we're hoping to be able to use Sandalphon as a means to sound out the extent of the dimension within the dirac sea."

"Is that useful, somehow?"

"It is if we want to create more of these devices and tailor them to their inhabitants, or even link them together... though my guess is we won't have either the power output or the processing capability for another of these devices in Nerv Headquarters. But it should also allow us to interact safely with Sandalphon without bringing the Angel back into our universe. Well, that's the theory, anyway."

"Right," replied Misato. She leant against one of the benches and watched Maya work for a while. "How are things with you... you know, generally?" she asked.

Maya stopped what she was doing and looked up.

"You mean outside Nerv?"

Misato nodded.

"I understand you've moved back into your apartment."

"I have, under advisement, but... Well, I'm grateful, and it _is_ good to be back in my old apartment, but is it safe?"

"Makoto assures me the police won't follow up on their old enquiries, it should be fine."

"That's good, I suppose... it's definitely nice to go outside again. How about the married couple? Are the girls settling in okay?"

"They seem to be, though Asuka seems to spend most of her time at the base. They're also not permitted to go into the city, for obvious reasons... but even so, I don't see them together as much as I used to. "

"That's a shame," said Maya, "I actually think they're quite cute together. Perhaps it's because they're so completely opposite."

"They're more similar than you might think," replied Misato. "But don't let anyone on the base hear you saying that phrase: 'married couple'. If it got back to Asuka, I don't like to think what kind of tantrums I'd have to deal with."

Maya laughed.

"Got it, sorry."

Misato smiled and began standing up. As she did, sirens began wailing around them.

"I thought you said testing was suspended for the day," she said, looking around.

"This isn't an Angel detection," replied Maya, all traces of laughter banished from her face, "this is a proximity alarm. Something's wrong."

The ground rumbled uneasily. Misato and Maya looked at each other.

* * *

In the command room, Makoto strode to the nearest technician's console.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

"One of the entryways has gone black. Point five five. We're getting no response from the security team there."

"Bring it up on screen," said Makoto.

"Sir," replied the technician, "there's nothing to see, all the cameras in point five five are non-functional."

"Show the footage leading up to the cameras going dark," said Makoto, "twenty seconds prior."

The video flashed up onto the main screen. It showed a tunnel with a checkpoint in the foreground. The tunnel drew away to about fifty metres then curved out of sight. The end of the tunnel was a concealed entrance in the city's subway system, Makoto knew.

A figure stood in this entryway, or rather, the _impression_ of a figure stood there. It was slight and insubstantial in the shadowy space. The guards at the checkpoint had yet to spot it.

Something was happening. The image on the screen was distorting somehow, fracturing.

"What's happening to the picture?" Makoto asked.

"There's nothing interfering with the feed, it's not a degradation of the image," replied a nearby technician, "this is what the camera saw..."

The view inside the tunnel continued to fragment. It was as if the air itself was freezing into faceted crystal panes that shifted and reflected sending confusing images back at the camera.

And now the security guards were fully aware of what was happening. They were shouting to one another and aiming pistols down the passage at the slight figure. The guards looked scared – and understandably so. Something happened and guns were fired, brief illuminations in the underground checkpoint. The figure shifted. A twinkle of light grew from the far end of the tunnel, quickly becoming a bright star, then everything went black.

Makoto opened a line to his commander in the shocked silence that followed.

"Makoto? What's going on?"

"We're under attack," said Makoto as the walls around them quaked slightly. "Gate five five. I think it's what we feared. An Angel with a beam weapon, maybe Ramiel. We're not sure yet."

"Fifteenth corridor has gone dark," shouted a technician, "the Angel is pushing into the facility!"

"I'm on my way up," said Misato, "get Asuka and Rei active. Pull our personnel away from the dorsal corridors, close the blast doors and have security teams cover the elevator shafts. Contact only to identify the Angel, no engagement, do you hear?"

"Understood," replied Makoto.

"And Makoto..." Misato paused, before continuing. "Have Daemon on standby. Give them a P-Rifle."

"Yes, commander," said Makoto.

He turned and began issuing orders.

* * *

As Misato and Maya strode along the corridors, making their way to the main entrance to Logos Omega, the walls, ground and ceiling quaked again, more violently this time, and for longer. Either the Angel was getting closer, or the damage it was doing had caused some kind of collapse within the facility.

"Where is it?" asked Misato over her radio.

"It appears to be making its way towards the living quarters and recreational section of HQ," replied Makoto.

"Why on earth would it be going there?" asked Misato, frowning.

"Maybe it doesn't know where it's going," replied Maya, at her elbow "it could be moving randomly hoping to find its way to the science facilities."

"Perhaps," replied Misato, "but Matarael seemed to know exactly where to go, like he was drawn to us. And Shamshel..." she stopped dead, eyes wide and staring at the floor.

 _Could it be...?_

Maya came to a halt, having only just managed to avoid colliding with her commander.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Makoto," shot Misato, "where are Asuka and Rei?"

"They were both in the mess hall when the Angel attack began. I've rerouted them, they're on their way down to you, but they're likely to intercept the Angel before they reach you."

"No!" replied Misato, quickly. "Tell them to hold where they are."

The pair were in terrible danger, and yet... if the Angel was really after what she thought it was after, she could use the first and second children to her advantage...

"Get the security teams to the living quarters and cover all entrances and exits to those levels. Evacuate everyone else. Have Daemon collect Asuka and Rei's eva-gear and link up with them in residential. Get them there before the Angel does, Makoto... I have an idea."

* * *

"Huuuuuh?" exclaimed Asuka over her radio, "you want us to be _bait?!_ "

"Forgive me, Asuka," replied Misato, "but if it's Ramiel, it's likely to have a very powerful AT field – the P-Rifle may be the only thing that can bring it down."

The canteen had very rapidly emptied when the alarms had gone off. Now Asuka and Rei stood alone in the large space, listening to Misato outlining her 'plan' over the radio.

"So you want us to play second fiddle to Daemon, is that what you're saying? Why not give us the sniper rifle? We'll deal with Ramiel, ourselves!"

"Because I'm hoping for the element of surprise. I have reason to believe the Angels may be able to sense either Rei or you, or maybe even both. This one is on its way to you right now."

"So we have to wait for it to attack us? That doesn't sound like a great plan, Misato. We don't even have our eva-gear."

"It's on its way to you," assured Misato. "When Daemon arrive, get suited up immediately. I'll have further instructions then."

The floor rumbled and the hanging lights in the canteen flickered.

"How long until they get here?" asked Asuka, looking around.

"About five minutes," replied Misato.

"And the Angel?"

There was a pause.

"About five minutes."

Asuka made a sound of disgust

"I'll do everything I can to slow it down," said Misato, "in the meantime, standby and wait for orders."

As the radio beeped off. Rei looked at her.

"Misato knows what she's doing." There was a calm and certainty on her face that disarmed Asuka, even in their current situation.

"I know that," replied Asuka, gruffly. "But she wants to put us in danger in order to achieve her plan."

"Don't worry..." said Rei. "I'll protect you."

Asuka blushed, fiercely.

"Don't you dare! You look after yourself and I'll do the same. I'm not going to die today, and neither are you!"

* * *

The Angel stopped and reached out. All around, she sensed the others, some near, some far. They were watching – watching with interest her progress towards their identical, but nevertheless unshared goal. Some were scared, because they believed themselves and their efforts undone, others looked on in sneering superiority, convinced that failure awaited her, always just around the next corner.

The Angel felt neither of these things. The Angel felt... cold. No amount of destruction within this place would replace the feeling of inevitability, no amount of lilim killed would change that. It had felt like a relief when she had let the destruction she housed free, having held it within her for so long, but that relief had faded quickly. Now every time she fired upon the lilim, the only thing she felt was anguish. In fact, the more of these cousins she annihilated, the more the feeling of inevitability grew. A despair seeped through the flesh she now called her form – the flesh that felt only pain, every waking moment, as if the melding of old and new tried to rebel with each beat of her core. In truth, she believed that neither victory nor defeat would change anything. She had already lost so much, she was already so alone. The only thing that remained to her was the goal, even if what it promised tasted like ash in comparison to what could have been.

All the Angel truly hoped for was an end. She had not wished to return. She had not wished to awake in terror and confusion, surrounded by creatures that sought her destruction. She would have wished only to stay in darkness. And yet...

And yet, she feared death. She feared her own death terribly. Was this what the lilim felt like all the time? How could they stand it, without submitting their souls to the comforting chaos of insanity? She would never know.

The only thing for her to do was move on and try to live where two of her siblings had already died. There was nothing else...

The Angel's senses sharpened. The children had stopped moving and were apparently waiting. Despite what had to come, the Angel felt some measure of kinship to each of them. They were as trapped by their destiny as she was. But they still wished to destroy her and she them. One of them held the goal, the other sought to protect it.

They would both have to die for her to live.

But now they were waiting. They were neither moving to attack, nor moving to retreat. That confused her for a moment, made her wary. The lilim had also vanished, leaving the way to the children clear. She paused, returning to the floor and standing, hesitating.

They knew she was coming. The lilim were aiding the children. They were cunning.

As she stood still, uncertain, blast doors all down the corridor closed, the last two boxing her into a small space about five metres square. The doors were no barrier to her, but they added to her confusion.

She was alone.

She was scared.

* * *

The doors to the canteen burst open and the three members of Daemon entered. One carried a long rifle that looked like a scaled down version of the positron rifle Rei had used against Arael, the other two were pushing what looked like large metal wardrobes on wheeled frames. These were man portable versions of the auto armourer built into Misato's command vehicle. As Daemon approached, the tall Japanese carrying the rifle tossed a plug suit to Rei. The trio were already geared up and ready to go.

"Hurry up and get ready," said Chiyoko, "the Angel could be here any moment!"

Asuka thought it better to say nothing about the soldier ordering around someone who was now effectively her commanding officer, and began pulling off her jacket and hat. As Rei stripped and began stepping into the plug suit, Asuka opened the first auto-armourer and climbed inside. The door swung closed, locking her in, and the now familiar activation protocols and warnings played across her vision. Then the armourer opened again and she stepped out, just as Rei was stepping into hers. Asuka flexed her muscles under the supple red armour and turned her helmeted head from side to side, getting used to the added bulk once again.

"What now?" asked Mal.

"Now we wait for further orders," replied Asuka, before Chiyoko could speak. She pulled a rifle from the side of the auto-armourer and checked its clip.

"Shouldn't we move out and find defensible positions?" the Briton asked. "We're like sitting ducks here."

"We'll do that, once I've briefed you on the plan," said a voice. Everyone present looked around to see Misato enter, striding confidently towards them, with Maya not far behind carrying her laptop under her arm.

"This plan had better be good!" said Asuka.

* * *

"It's been confirmed," said Makoto over the radio, as Misato, Chiyoko and Mal ran down the corridor towards the living quarters. "the Angel is Ramiel. Cameras in the undamaged areas of the base have sighted it. But be warned, commander, it looks quite... different, now."

"It doesn't matter what it looks like," replied Misato. "Where is it now?"

"It seems to have stopped its advance and is circling around to the South."

"It's hesitating?" asked Misato, stunned.

"Apparently so," replied Makoto, "but it's already done untold damage to the base. Sixteen security personnel and five non-combat staff are unaccounted for, presumed dead."

Misato gritted her teeth.

"Then let's put this Angel down for good," she said.

She turned to the two members of Daemon following her and pulled out her pistol.

"Let's go," she told them. "We're taking point."

* * *

"I don't like this," said Asuka for the umpteenth time, as they crouched at the intersection between the med-sci ring and the radial corridor leading to the central elevator shafts. Maya crouched not far away, her laptop plugged into the wall of the med-sci corridor, busily tapping away at it.

"I can't let kids take on all the danger," she had said, "I'm fighting in my own way..."

The lighting was bright, easily bright enough to see the thirty feet in either direction that the the circular corridor allowed them before curving out of sight. Two hundred feet away, towards the central elevators, Sho Akagi, the member of Daemon carrying the sniper rifle waited in a concealed position, covering their location. All of the bulkheads and blast doors along the radial corridor had been opened to give Sho the longest unobstructed view possible to his target – almost four hundred metres of tunnel.

The P-Rifle wasn't much of a weapon to have covering you. If it came to him firing on the Angel, and they were still where they crouched now, they would be vaporised along with much of the corridor around them. And if the Angel fired first, the result would likely be the same.

"I don't like this," repeated Asuka, gritting her teeth.

Rei didn't say anything. She trusted Misato, but even so, sitting waiting for an Angel to attack them felt like a dangerous course of action.

She glanced at Asuka. If it came to it, she knew she would sacrifice herself to save her... friend? Is that what they were now? They had lived together for several weeks, and yet the distance between them seemed to have grown not diminished. She thought back with a strange pang to when she had first come to Kaibyaku and Asuka had taken her in, when they had cleaned together and talked and even slept in the same bed. She remembered how new and confusing everything had felt. Things were simpler now, as they always were when you were fighting for your life, but she still felt like she had lost something along with the jumble of emotions and sensations that had accompanied her during those first few days and weeks.

It did no good to think about it, though. Especially not when they might be attacked at any moment. Such preoccupations were a dangerous distraction that could lead to her or her friends' deaths. She furrowed her brow and tried to banish the troubling thoughts.

"Are you okay?" asked Asuka, and Rei realised the German had been watching her.

"I'm fine," she replied.

"Remember what I said," her friend told her, "don't do anything stupid."

There was a whole host of things Asuka considered stupid. It was sometimes difficult to know just what particular stupid thing Asuka was referring to. Thinking about that made Rei smile, faintly. It was still a new feeling, but in spite of Asuka's flaws, both old and new, she found there was more to the German that she liked than she disliked. A lot more.

 _Misato said I loved her..._

Yes, if Asuka was in danger, she would definitely protect her.

* * *

Misato moved cautiously forward, Chiyoko and Mal taking positions ahead of her as they attempted to creep up on the the Angel.

"Remember," hissed Misato, "we're just here to harry it and drive it towards Rei and Asuka. No heroics. No one man charges. We hit it, we move on."

She halted. Something was wrong.

The air took on a fractured, glassaic quality, as though the viewer was looking through multiple overlapping shards of glass. Though the strange air shifted as they moved, providing no physical barrier, pressing on through it was difficult, as if some unseen force acted upon them.

"What is this?" asked Misato. "Are you seeing this, Makoto?"

"Some kind of atmospheric phenomenon," replied Makoto over the link. "We saw the same thing in the security footage before gate five five went dark. If you're encountering it, I'm guessing the Angel is close by."

Chiyoko and Mal returned and took up positions at her side, aiming their rifles down the corridor.

"What even is this?" asked Mal, waving a hand in the strange air. There was a odd quality to his voice in this place, as if the harmonics of his speech were being reflected by the air as well, parts of his vocal range swelled, other frequencies were deadened, yet not constantly. The sound kept shifting. It was almost musical.

"Some kind of defence mechanism?" asked Chiyoko. "Engaging an Angel in this will be difficult..."

"I can't see straight," agreed Mal, gritting his teeth. "It's like shooting at mirrors..."

"Pull back to the intersection," instructed Misato.

"To late!" replied Mal, sighting down his rifle. At the far end of the corridor, a figure glided into view. It was slight and small, human in shape and also obviously female, though its skin was a deep shimmery blue that both reflected light and also drew it into the depths of its body. It's hair was also blue, long and flowing, reaching almost to its toes. The hair formed strangely geometric shapes in the air, billowing and breaking apart before reforming in some new configuration.

The Angel floated about ten centimetres from the floor, gliding smoothly along the corridor. It was also the proportions of a child, and looked vulnerable for it.

"Is that a little girl?!" asked Mal.

"Another trick," growled Misato.

"Are we clear to engage?" asked Chiyoko, drawing a bead as best she could on the Angel's 'head'.

"No," replied Misato, "fall back to the intersection. Do it now!"

They turned and sprinted back to the crossroads as the Angel turned towards them. Then four points of light twinkled into existence, one at her head, one at her feet and one each at either of her outstretched arms. A strange, ethereal, wailing scream built as the four points of light drew into the centre of the Angel, the child's form drawing in to a curled ball as the scream reached a climax.

"Shit!" cried Misato, "clear the corridor!"

They threw themselves down the connecting corridor, Misato and Chiyoko to the left and Mal to the right. A fraction of a second later, the corridor lit up like a sun, blinding white light and deafening noise. Misato threw up her arms to shield her face from the scorching backwash of heat.

It lasted no more than a few seconds, then the light faded leaving her blinking at the after-image.

Gunfire sounded and she realised Mal was the one firing. He was in his armour with a visored helmet, so he was better protected than she was. He had taken a knee at the junction and was firing at the Angel.

"It's moving on!" he shouted as Chiyoko joined him, her own rifle spitting. Misato reached them just had time to see the AT field deflecting bullets in all direction as the Angel disappeared around a corner.

"Stop firing," she told them, as the air around them returned to normal. Then she surveyed the wreckage in the corridor, the slagged metal floor tiles, pulverised stone and scorched and glowing concreted walls which were now fading back to their original colour after being kissed by an Angel's wrath.

 _Deadly, but nowhere near the power it had in Tokyo Three,_ she thought with grim satisfaction. _This will do..._

"Makoto, where is it heading?" she asked.

"It's back on course and heading towards Asuka and Rei's position," replied Makoto.

"Good," she replied. "Maya, did you see the atmospheric phenomenon on the cameras?"

"I did," replied Maya, "I'm analysing the data now... maybe some kind of dimensional fissuring. I'll get back to you if there's anything we can use."

"Then let's get moving," she told them all.

* * *

"It's here," hissed Asuka.

The strange air had preceded the arrival of the Angel, spreading like frost across a pane of glass, distorting the world inside the corridor into angular reflections and refractions. As it rounded the corner, gliding into view, Rei and Asuka opened up on it.

Their fire proved utterly ineffective. The shots slid from the Angel's AT field in fat sparks of light.

"Tell us when to move!" shouted Asuka over her radio.

"I have no shot," replied Sho. His voice was tight, but level. "The distortions are preventing me from getting a lock."

"Maya!" cried Asuka as she and Rei hurled themselves back into the cover of the intersection. Maya was tapping furiously at her laptop. She threw her hands up.

"I don't... it's not spacial, at least the distortions aren't..."

"Just give us something we can use!" said Asuka as she wheeled around the corner again, spraying bullets once more.

The Angel spread its arms, and a light grew at four points around its person, head, feet, right and left hand, and drew into its centre. A building ethereal scream grew with the light.

"High energy reading!" yelled Maya. "It's going to fire!"

"Misato! Where are you?"

"En-route," replied Misato. "Hold it together, Asuka!"

Asuka cursed in German. She lifted her rifle and poured a stream of bullets into the gantries and piping above the Angel. A cascade of shredded metal and concrete rained down on the Angel. Rei joined her firepower to Asuka's and the cascade became an avalanche. The burgeoning light was extinguished in a cloud of dust and debris that mushroomed down the corridor towards them.

Asuka dropped to a knee, still sighting scanning the cloud for the Angel.

"Maya, give us _something_."

"I can't! It's not generating the distortions externally, it must have some form of core, to create what we're seeing it should be generating masses of heat but somehow it's containing it all. It's like a thermal black hole..."

 _Everything emits at least some heat... the walls the floor... if the Angel doesn't, if it blocks thermal readings..._

Asuka dropped her rifle to her side, dawning realisation hitting her.

"Akagi! Switch to infrared! Target the thermal shadow!"

"Lined up. Taking the shot," said Sho an instant later, his voice utterly calm.

Asuka and Rei threw themselves into the med-sci intersection as Sho Akagi opened up with the P-Rifle. The blazing beam of focused energy slammed down the corridor into the Angel, making the sound of breaking glass as it travelled down the corridor. There was a ground rocking explosion.

* * *

"Did we get it?" yelled Misato over the link as the dust and debris settled.

Sho got to his feet, climbing out of the makeshift trench and barricade formed from shifted and angled floor panels. He lifted the cooling rifle, squinting through the sight as the clouds of smoke dissipated.

"Negative, negative!" came the panicked voice of Maya Ibuki. "The Angel is still active, its AT field displaced the blast!"

A twinkle of light shone through the settling dust.

"High energy reading detected!" cried the chief.

"Sho!" yelled Chiyoko.

Then the Angel fired. The world became white.

It took Sho a good few seconds to realise he wasn't dead. He lowered the arm he had thrown up on instinct and shook his head, trying to clear his dazzled vision.

There was a figure on the floor further up the corridor. It was dressed in white armour.

"Rei!" screamed Asuka, and she threw herself from cover, her rifle spitting a hail of bullets at the Angel. The AT field expanded once more, deflecting every bullet she fired. Then Ramiel began advancing on her, gliding down the corridor, absolutely unfazed by Asuka's withering fire.

Misato and the other members of Daemon rounded the corner behind the Angel.

"Fire!" she yelled and all three opened up at once.

No AT field expanded behind the Angel. The bullets hammered into its back and Ramiel tumbled, a very human shriek of pain emanating from its lips. Red liquid spattered the floor, sizzling in the scorched areas.

Misato lowered her pistol. She saw Asuka drop her rifle and spin away, sprinting to where the broken form of Rei Ayanami lay on the ground, screaming for her companion to open her eyes, to get up, just _for god sake to be alive_.

 _Rei..._

White hot rage flooded Misato's mind.

* * *

Leaving her laptop, Maya scrambled to the intersection and looked out into the scorched and blasted corridor.

The Angel wasn't dead. Neither was Rei. She was moving fitfully on the floor, the full twenty feet away she had been thrown by the Angel's blast. Asuka threw herself to the floor at Rei's side, trying to cradle the girl in her arms.

Maya looked in the other direction and saw Misato walking down the corridor towards the stricken Angel, pistol in hand. Ramiel was crawling pitifully away from the commander, suddenly a broken, fragile thing. The strange, fragmented nature to the air had faded and vanished away, leaving the form of a child crawling across the cracked floor.

And that's what Maya instinctively knew it was: a child. The quality of youth, or inexperience, was something Maya had never associated with the Angels before, but when she thought about it it made sense – if there was now a link between the Angels and humanity, they had to have been born... Sandalphon demonstrated that. And if they were born, maybe they had to learn, as well?

The pitiful looking creature on the floor was undeniably young in appearance. As it rolled over onto its back and looked up with blank blue eyes as Misato stood over it, Maya also instinctively knew what the commander was about to do was wrong.

"Misato..." she started, but then she realised with a start the Angel was attempting to speak, struggling to form words with lips and vocal chords it wasn't used to.

"Save... me..."

Misato either didn't hear, or didn't care. She lifted her pistol and aimed it at the Angel's head.

"Misato! Don't!" cried Maya.

"Save..."

" _Misato!_ "

Misato fired.

* * *

It was dark and late when Kuro Suzuki returned to his small apartment. He had spent a lot of time just walking the streets of Kaibyaku, trying to get his thoughts in order after his confrontation with his partner. Not many people had been out and about, due to the reported minor quakes earlier in the day. Mother Earth, it seemed, continued on as it always had, unaffected by the events of Third Impact.

Perhaps the captain was right, perhaps the old man was as well. Perhaps he was best off leaving well alone.

Could he do that, though? Did he have the mental strength to just forget?

His cat, a small black stray he'd taken from the street and named Sat-chan, mewed at his feet as he entered.

"Sorry, sorry!" he said, "I totally forgot about you, didn't I? I'll get your dinner now..."

He headed into his apartment kitchenette, pulling a short tin of kitten food out of the cupboard and setting an opener to the top.

The telephone began ringing.

 _Koga_... thought the detective sergeant. _I guess I'd better make nice_...

The cat was still mewing, so he carried the tin over to the telephone and lifted the receiver, sticking it under his chin as he opened the food.

"Kuro Suzuki speaking," he said, still fiddling with the opener.

It wasn't Koga.

"I understand you're looking for Maya Ibuki."

He froze.

"I'm sorry?" he asked, his throat seeming to bulge in his shock, closing around his vocal chords, making it difficult to talk properly. He swallowed. Hard.

"She has returned to her residence and taken up her old job," said the voice. "Her job before Third Impact. She has returned, Kuro. So has Nerv."

"Who is this?" whispered Suzuki.

The line went dead.


	6. Chapter 6

**The Angel of Terror.**

The red-lit sign above the doorway read 'EMERGENCY MEDICAL TREATMENT IN PROGRESS'. Asuka sat outside the door with her hands in her lap, clutching a small box. She waited patiently, even though the chair she sat on was hard and growing ever more uncomfortable. She waited silently even though all she wanted to do was scream.

The light above the doorway flicked off.

* * *

Chief Technician Maya Ibuki sat on her barstool staring at the glass of scotch in her hand. The down-town bar was noisy and crowded and flashing lights and pumping music from the dance floor in the next room permeated the smoky air. She was here to relax, to take her commander's advice and take a break, but she just couldn't. The tension wouldn't leave her muscles as the events of the past few weeks kept playing and replaying in her head.

 _The Angel spoke..._

It opened up a whole host of questions. If the Angels could speak, that suggested the possibility of communication, something that had always been thought to be impossible before now. And if communication was possible...

 _The Angel spoke_... She _spoke_...

It had been a she. The body was interred in the tanks of Logos Omega, but to Maya, the body of the Angel seemed a terribly fragile thing, quite unlike the geometric monster that had assailed Tokyo 3 and difficult to marry to the thing that had caused so much destruction at Neo Nerv headquarters. When she looked at the tiny and frail blue body, Maya couldn't banish the image of a little girl, one that was frightened and lashing out with power beyond her control.

It was ridiculous. The thing was an Angel. It had murdered scores of base personnel, colleagues and friends. And yet...

She groaned at the tumult of thoughts and emotions wrestling within her.

"Another drink to go with the one you haven't touched?" asked the barman as he passed. The comment was light-hearted in nature, but dug at her nonetheless. She took one last look at the drink then set it down on the bar.

"No thanks," she said, as she climbed down from the barstool. "I should be going anyway. I have... work tomorrow."

The barman nodded.

"You should come back during the week. It's quieter, easier to think." He nodded to the flashing lights and loud music coming from the dance floor, then looked back at her and grinned. "Maybe meet someone who isn't a drunken idiot!"

Maya gave the man a tired smile as she turned to leave.

"Yeah... I might do that," she told him.

 _Although, thinking is the last thing I want to be doing right now. And meeting someone..._

As she gathered her bag and left the bar, she didn't see the tall man with dark hair watching her from the corner. She didn't see him rise from his seat as she made her way through the exit.

* * *

Half an hour later she was walking into her old apartment. She threw her handbag into a chair and retrieved a bottle of ramune from the kitchen fridge, popping the marble, before flicking on the TV to the late night news report, just so there wouldn't be silence in her home.

There was a news item about the localised earthquakes that had shaken parts of the city several days earlier, but no mention was made of the Angel attack... understandably, as the news outlet – the only one now running on the new Council television network – basically ran the stories that Emergency Housing Committee (and behind them, Nerv) wanted them to run. So far, they seemed to be managing to keep a lid on the Angels, but Maya thought it was only a matter of time before one did something on the surface and in full view of the public – something that couldn't be denied in the press.

How would Nerv cope then? Maya wasn't sure they would.

After the news item, the programming moved on to lighter topics and more of a magazine style format, with guests and musicians and articles about food and local business. A cat that had given birth to a record-breaking litter of kittens was brought out, much to the delight of the female co-host. Maya sighed and crossed to the window, looking out on the street that she, Asuka and Rei had first caught sight of the agents who had proved to be their first glimpse of the new Nerv organisation and the terrible news they brought of humanity's worst nightmares reborn.

She scanned the darkened street, and her eyes fixed on something.

There was a man standing in the shadows on the other side of the street, looking up at her apartment window. He was dressed in dark clothing and was tall, his face very pale under the street lamps. She didn't recognise him, though in truth, she hardly got a glimpse at his face, because when she looked down at him, he turned and walked away.

Maya stood, unsettled by the incident. Was it some Nerv employee, or someone else, entirely unconnected? What was he doing looking up at her apartment window?

"He's watching you."

Maya turned quickly, but it was only the television. The male co-host was talking about a kitten he was holding, who seemed more interested in the female co-host.

Maya let out a slightly shaky breath. She turned back to the window, but the tall man was gone.

"A member of Section Two?" she wondered out loud. "Why would he be watching my apartment? Does Misato have agents watching her subordinates?"

"He isn't the only one."

Maya's head snapped back to the television, and she realised with a shock that the male host was staring directly into the camera, directly out of the screen – directly at _her_. For a long moment, the co-host held her gaze, then he looked away and the programme moved on to another section with an up and coming comedian who had been touring the clubs recently.

Maya remained frozen, wondering if that had really just happened.

The phone rang, making her jump. She crossed to it and picked it up with trembling fingers.

"...Hello?"

"Maya?" It was Misato. "I just wanted to tell you, Rei just came round. Asuka's with her right now."

"Thank goodness, that's a relief," said Maya, relaxing at the sound of a familiar voice, "how are they both doing?"

"Asuka's trying to act tough, but she's been crying, I know. Rei still has bandages around her eyes, so she hasn't been able to see that. Coulsen thinks she'll make a good recovery, though. Her vision shouldn't be permanently impaired and her burns aren't too bad..." There was a pause. "Her AT field... it was lucky she's so strong. Anyone else would have been vaporised."

"Anyone else but one, maybe. I hope that man Sho knows she saved his life, stepping in front of him like that... The rest of Daemon, too."

"I will be sure to make that fact abundantly clear to all three of them."

Maya smiled, but the smile felt fake on her face. Since the incident with Ramiel – if it truly had been Ramiel – Maya had a feeling something had changed in the commander... or something had come to light that she hadn't known about before.

"Misato... that Angel..."

Misato's tone suddenly hardened.

"What about it?"

There was a coldness to Misato's voice at the mention of Ramiel that perturbed Maya.

"... nothing. It doesn't matter."

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone, a silence that was difficult for Maya to gauge. Then Misato spoke again.

"Well then, see you bright and early tomorrow morning?"

"I'll be there, Commander."

She hung up, then remembered she hadn't asked about the figure she had seen. Briefly, she considered calling the commander back, but then thought better of it. Misato didn't need to hear about some guy who just happened to glance up at her window. She looked at the television, but the programme had changed to a rerun of an old anime. Silly. No way the television could have been talking to her, either. She was just stressed. It was no wonder Misato had suggested she get more rest. Her mind was starting to play tricks on her.

Maya watched the anime for a few minutes. She thought she might recognise the show, but couldn't place it. It was something with big robots fighting invading aliens, anyway.

Maya smiled ruefully. At least there was no need for those any more...

* * *

It was only a few days later that the next Angel attacked.

Maya was in the command room, its main doors freshly painted with its new codename: Logos Alpha, overseeing the upgrading of the detection systems using data obtained from Sandalphon's dimensional prison within the room now known as Logos Omega.

"So this will mean we can detect and track the Angels with accuracy outside the base?" asked Misato from her command chair.

She was sitting with her legs crossed, an elbow resting on the arm of her chair, hand propping up her chin. She looked bored.

Maya sat at a console nearby, tapping away and issuing instructions to her subordinates. The room was awash with technicians and even Makoto worked at another terminal, having offered his services.

"Just like old times," he had called across to Maya, a grin on his face.

"Just try to keep up," Maya had replied with a smile, "hopefully command duties won't have dulled your technical skills too much!"

That had been about an hour ago. Now, the bulk of the delicate programming and tuning had been completed and they were almost ready to reboot the detection systems. Maya turned in her seat to answer the commander's question.

"It'll mean we can pinpoint an intruder within the base much more effectively, but no, we won't be able to do the same in the city above." That wouldn't be the case until the UN launched their new satellites, and due to budgetary issues, that wouldn't happen until the end of the next month. "Not yet, at least," continued Maya, "although our proximity warning range will be expanded dramatically."

"Right, right," said Misato, the bored look never leaving her face.

"Are we ready?" asked Maya. The technicians around the room all reported readiness one by one. Makoto was the last. He nodded to Maya. "Okay everyone, here we go," she said.

She typed in the activation command. The main viewing screen filled with code that began sorting itself before their eyes.

"How long will this take?" asked Misato as a technical image of the various Disciple cores flashed up on the screen.

"A few minutes at most," replied Maya, grinning at Misato. "Then you'll have your Angel detector, commander."

The screen filled with red warning messages.

Everyone in the room froze.

"What's going on?" asked Misato, sitting up.

Maya whirled back to her console, her fingers flying over her keyboard.

"Disciple is under attack," she replied, "the system is going into automatic lock-down and deploying countermeasure programs."

"An Angel?" asked Misato.

"It must be," replied Maya, "nothing else could possibly match this processing speed."

A siren sounded.

"Nathanael has been contacted!" exclaimed Makoto. "Incursion is progressing quickly."

"Is it an external attack," asked Misato.

"No," replied Makoto, "it's coming from within the base."

"Just like last time," muttered Misato. "Can you lock down the source?"

"Negative," replied Makoto, "I can't pinpoint the point of attack. If it's a corrosive nano material like before... well, we don't have the range of offensive automata we had at old Nerv to hunt it down and destroy it physically."

Misato and Maya exchanged looks.

"Clear the command room," said Misato, standing up. "All non-essential personnel make your way to the evacuation centres. Maya, do we need to shut down?"

"No, commander, I have this."

This was precisely what she had been working so hard for, why she had devised Disciple in the first place. No Angel was going to wrest control of her own system. Not today.

Maya stood.

"I'm ready. Let me take care of this, commander."

She looked at Misato, who studied her for a moment, then nodded her head.

"You have the command room," she replied.

The determined look on Maya's face became a tight smile.

"Thank you, Misato," she told her friend. Misato nodded, then spoke into the general broadcast system.

"This is Commander Katsuragi speaking, as of this moment command control has been passed to the chief technician. All orders are to go through her. Personnel of clearance D and below should begin evacuation of Nerv Headquarters by assigned routes."

Maya crossed to the command consoles and spoke to the two lieutenants there, who nodded and stood. Without another word, they left the room. At almost the same moment, two others entered, a young man and a young woman. They were dressed in uniforms of black rather than tan.

"What is this?" asked Misato, as they took the vacated seats. "Who are these people, Maya?"

"Specialists," replied the chief. She looked at the commander and at Makoto at his terminal. "You have your special forces. Well, now, so do I."

One of the black uniformed technicians, the male, turned in his seat. He had short dark hair and tanned skin, and appeared efficient, though there was a roguish twinkle in his eye.

"First lieutenant Shiro Murasame," he said, "this is first lieutenant Haruna Akizuki."

"Introductions later, Shiro," said the female, her fingers already dancing over the keys of her console. She had quick dark eyes and her fluffy short hair was dyed an impressively rich purple. "The Angel's already making serious inroads into Nathanael."

Shiro nodded and turned back to his console. Their fingers began flying across their keyboards at an incredible rate. On the screen, warnings began disappearing, sections of the Nathanael graphic turning back from red to green.

"Amazing," breathed Makoto, his eyes widening in appreciation.

"This will be over before it's even begun," stated Maya, confidently.

"Don't be so sure," said Misato, leaning forward.

A second infection of the Nathanael core had begun and was spreading rapidly. Maya pursed her lips in annoyance.

"What's the status of the invader?" she asked.

"It is progressing quickly," replied Shiro, "the infection is evading all of our decoy entries and our barriers are proving ineffective."

"Estimate twelve seconds before it contacts the next core," added Haruna.

It was gaining a foothold in her system. To all intents and purposes, things looked bad.

Maya folded her arms and smiled.

"Very well. Let the Sons of Thunder loose on this bastard invader."

Two further cores flashed up on the screen. One was labelled James and the other John.

"The siblings are contacting Nathanael," said Haruna. "Counter programs engaged."

Maya looked at Misato, providing information for her unasked question.

"The sibling cores are named after James and John, who were known as the 'Sibling Sons of Thunder'. They were aggressive and strong minded and so are these two cores. Normal cores can only attack infections within their own systems, but the siblings are capable of taking the fight into connected systems. In concert, they can simulate a counter infection and fight the invader at its own game."

"By subverting the invader's own programming?" asked Misato.

"Yes," replied Maya, with a nod. "We're much better prepared for an Angel level attack this time round."

"I hope you're right," replied Misato, sitting back in her chair and staring at the screen.

On it, counter waves of green had begun spreading across the red, even as the red had finally reached the last of the blue pixels that made up Nathanael's core. That final pixel flickered briefly before returning to blue and the counter-attack began pushing the red flood back.

It became slow going for both sides, blocks were gained and blocks were lost as the two cores duelled with the infection, but eventually they succeeded in forcing the red back almost to its source.

Haruna looked up at Maya, a triumphant look on her face.

"James and John have beaten back the infection. It's just a matter of cleansing the remaining subroutines and we'll have complete contr–"

"Simon is coming under attack!" shouted Shiro, suddenly. "The infection is spreading beyond the range of the siblings!"

"How is that possible?" asked Makoto. "Simon isn't directly linked to Nathanael!"

"Enforcer programs are being subverted... Simon has recognised the infection as the strongest core! It's going to side with the invader!"

"What's going on?" asked Misato.

"Simon is an enforcer," said Maya, "it automatically sides with the majority and adds weight to their decisions. It shouldn't side with an outsider, something's wrong, here..." She gritted her teeth, then turned to Haruna. "Turn the siblings on Simon! Do it now!"

"But the invader..."

"The invader will win a foothold we'll find difficult to shift if we let it have Simon now. Do it!"

"Rerouting attack," said Shiro, through gritted teeth. His fingers flew in a blur across his keypad as James and John were directed against one of Disciples own systems. "They're holding Simon, but infection of Nathanael is progressing once more."

"Have Philip bolster Nathanael and James the Less try to draw the Angel's attention with its decoy systems. Maybe we can buy enough time for the siblings to bring Simon back to task..."

"Infections detected in Jude and Peter! They're spreading independently!"

"What is this?" gasped Maya, looking at her monitor. "These are unconnected systems! How is the infection spreading from core to core without us..." Her eyes widened. "Haruna! What's the status of Andrew?"

"Free of infection," said Haruna, frowning, "why should that..." Then her own eyes widened in horrified realisation and she turned her seat towards the chief. "We're being fed misinformation?"

Maya whirled back to her station.

"Bring up the overview of Andrew's subsystems and filter by unreported commands and actions."

The main viewing screen highlighted the relevant core, a box shaped icon printed with the legend 'The Path'. A myriad of thin lines spread from Andrew, connecting all of the other cores on the screen sometimes a great many times. Most of these lines were now flashing red, as was the core itself.

"What is this?" asked Misato. Maya gritted her teeth.

"Shut Andrew down," she told Shiro.

"If we do that, we'll lose a huge amount of processing power! Certain sections of the base will be disconnected from the server. We may lose power. Any staff who are evacuating may become trapped."

"We have no choice," replied Maya, "do it."

Shiro looked conflicted, but then typed in the command. The lights in the room flickered and then dimmed, but didn't go out. On the screen, the Andrew core blinked and then greyed out, as did the myriad connections leading from it.

"Cycling logic mode," said Haruna, "rate of infection has dropped to zero-point-two-four."

Maya breathed a sigh of relief. The Angel had stolen several marches on her, but at least she had slowed it down. The question was, could she win the situation back?

It came as a sickening realisation, as she surveyed the near catastrophic damage done by their first engagement, that she simply didn't know.

* * *

In Logos Omega, deep in the belly of Nerv HQ, Helen Coulsen sat at a desk in the specimen room eating her dinner, such that it was. Cup Ramen was often all she had time for in her hectic day split between supervising the science teams in Logos Omega and overseeing treatments in the medical facility. She sat on a stool, directly in front of her latest specimen. 'Ramiel-chan', as many of her staff had begun referring to the dead Angel, floated in her tank, the strange blue hair that seemed to part and flow like ordinary hair, yet which apparently had no distinction between strands or follicles except where it was physically pushed apart, billowed in the slightly green tinted water around her. The blank blue eyes stared out, unmoving and unseeing, yet still feeling like they looked into her very core.

It might have sounded strange, but Helen liked the sensation. She found the very alien-ness of the Angels fascinating and was beginning to appreciate the work done by the xenobiologists at old Nerv, Ritsuko Akagi's in particular. She'd spent many nights poring over her predecessor's old papers and notes, and many days applying what she learnt to her own studies on the Angel's physiology. She was rapidly coming to the conclusion that these new Angels had found some way to combine the extradimensional tissue that composed their old forms with human DNA, but in a way that allowed for infinitely greater information storage capacity. The discoveries she was making were helping in the production of more up to date Eva Gear as well as stronger reactive armour for their vehicles and a myriad of other improvements.

Helen slurped more ramen from between her chopsticks and stared at Ramiel-chan. She (it was difficult to think of the Angel in any other way than as a 'she', though she had no discernible reproductive organs) had died in much the same way as Matarael had. A single bullet wound to the head, and with the changed solution in the specimen tank, there had been none of the alarming regeneration displayed by the spider-like Angel.

She glanced at the Ibuki device to her right, its eerie black pool like a doorway to the alternate dimension that acted as a prison to Sandalphon, though that doorway was in actuality the prison itself. It always made her feel uncomfortable, something that was next to impossible to comprehend with her normal senses, and difficult to understand, even with an extensive knowledge of theoretical physics. Sometimes she thought the device itself was whispering to her, some kind of low-level language that just evaded her ability to understand, always slightly beyond the threshold of her hearing, even when the lab was silent, like it was now.

There was no doubt, the scientific advances they were making at the moment were remarkable, but Helen knew it was only a matter of time before they ran into a wall. Eventually a living specimen would be required if they were to truly understand how the Angels functioned. Maybe it was time to start thinking about recovering Sandalphon from its prison, or even capturing another Angel alive somehow. She would have to discuss the matter with Misato soon.

But Misato was another concern for her. She had not come to any of her medical appointments, nor had she visited the specimen room since her run in with Ramiel. Helen couldn't assess what effect the encounter had had on her commander. In spite of her alien-ness, Ramiel looked so much like a human child, it could not have been anything but affecting to have had to shoot it. But Misato refused to talk about the matter.

Her gaze travelled past the Ibuki device to the huge head of Unit 02, that sat impassively in it's glassed in bay. It was a reminder that Misato wasn't the only one with issues that needed monitoring. Asuka had taken to sitting in front of the glass in the quieter moments of her day, staring at the gigantic reminder of her past. It was easier to read her situation, though: Unit 02 was a very real representation of her mother and of a time before Nerv that was full of repressed pain, something that had been brought sharply back to her by the unexpected activation of the head, during the fight with Matarael. While it wasn't easy to help Asuka, it was at least easier to understand and sympathise with her pain. Misato, on the other hand...

With a sigh, she put her empty cup down on the surface next to her and climbed wearily to her feet. Whatever Misato might be going through, it couldn't concern her at the moment. There were always more tests to run and more experiments to devise and she should get back to work.

Unfortunately for her work, however, as she turned away from Ramiel's tank, the lights went out.

* * *

A short time before the Angel began its attack on Disciple, and before Doctor Coulsen was plunged into darkness in Logos Omega, Asuka was visiting Rei in her hospital room. The blue haired girl was recovering well, her body healing itself with the aid of Coulsen's expert care. Large patches of her skin were still bound and bandaged to keep particularly bad burns from becoming infected, and Rei was forced to wear oversized dark-tinted goggles to prevent her eyes from suffering further damage that could have occurred even under the soft lighting in her recovery room.

The goggles were large and covered much of her upper face, making it even harder to gauge her emotions than normal. She sat up in bed, beneath clean white sheets, with Asuka occupying a seat at her bedside. An opened package sat on the nightstand next to the bed, its contents sitting on the bed, not far from Rei's right hand. Asuka had given it to her the day she had awoken from unconsciousness, though Rei hadn't been able to see it until the bandages around her eyes had been removed, so it had remained unopened until now. Asuka had presented it to her again, not really sure what reaction she had been hoping for.

It was a locket. She had seen it in a trinket shop in Kaibyaku about half a year before Rei returned, had found it buried amongst a whole pile of virtually worthless costume jewellery of paste and glass, and had bought it on impulse with the entirety of one of her early pay cheques. In truth, it was probably worth much more – or at least, it would have in the world pre-third impact. She still couldn't say why she had bought it, but upon giving it to Rei, she was glad she had.

"I've never been given a gift by anyone but Ikari-san before," Rei told her as she drew the locket from its modest box. "Asuka... thank you."

The locket was small, pretty. It was diamond shaped and enamelled half in a rich crimson and half in a pale aquamarine. One side held a tiny ruby at it's centre, the other, a sapphire. Rei had held it up in front of her, where it had spun and sparkled in the hospital lighting.

"It's... beautiful..." said Rei. "What is it?"

Asuka had burst into laughter.

"You're totally hopeless, you know?" she grinned at Rei, feeling warm at her companion's reaction to receiving it. "It's a locket, Rei. You wear it around your neck."

"It's beautiful," repeated Rei, still holding it in front of her face.

"There's space inside for pictures," continued Asuka. "When you find someone... ummm... special... you can put their photo in there... or something..." She had blushed and looked away.

Rei put the locket carefully back into its box and laid it on her bed.

"Asuka... I'm sorry."

"What for?" asked Asuka, looking back at her, startled.

"I... don't have a gift for you..."

"Baka!" laughed the German. "I didn't give you this because I wanted something in return! And besides, how could you possibly have got anything for me? Quite apart from the fact you're in a hospital bed, you can't even go outside!"

"Still..." said Rei. And the forlorn sound to her voice made Asuka laugh all the more, until even Rei couldn't keep from smiling.

Eventually conversation turned inevitably to the confrontation with Ramiel. Rei fell silent at the mention of the strange blue Angel, but Asuka turned bellicose. She chastised Rei for her reckless actions stepping in front of the Daemon operative. Surprisingly enough, however, Rei defended herself.

"Do you believe I should have let Sho die?" she asked, quietly.

"No, of course not!" chattered Asuka. "But there must have been some other way that didn't involve you nearly dying!"

Rei shook her head slowly.

"There was no other way."

"There's _always_ another way!" insisted Asuka. "Did you even think about what I would have done if you'd died?"

The goggles may have prevented much of Rei's facial expressions from being discerned, but it was still obvious the girl was surprised by this question.

"What you would have done?" she asked, slowly.

Asuka blushed fiercely.

"Forget it, Rei," she said, quickly. Rei shook her head.

"I don't understand, Asuka, what would you –"

"I said forget it!" insisted Asuka, standing up. She suddenly felt frustrated and angry and she didn't really understand why. Rei simply sat propped up in her bed watching Asuka. Or, at least, Asuka thought the girl was watching her, it was difficult to tell behind the dark goggles.

She opened her mouth to say something else, but it was at that point that the warning sirens started and the room door closed and locked.

* * *

"Iruel," said Misato. She leant over the desk in her private office and looked around the table at her assembled staff members. "I think we're all in agreement that, due to the similarities to our previous engagements with the Angels, we're dealing with Iruel. Is that correct?"

There were murmurs of assent from the assembled technicians. Maya was there, looking somewhat chastened, but no less determined. So was Makoto, steady as always. The two specialists, Shiro and Haruna, sat side by side. Shiro was tapping away at a laptop, ensuring someone was keeping an overview of the Angel's incursion, even as this briefing was taking place. Maya's prodigal assistant, Cho Lau, completed the complement of high ranking technical staff. All of them looked grim, but she could see the agreement to her statement in their faces.

"What is our next move? I'm assuming the solution we used last time isn't an option?"

"Explosive evolution?" shrugged Makoto. "It's a possibility, but I think we have to assume Iruel will have learnt its lesson from our last encounter. Besides which, none of the other Angels have been exactly the same as last time, I think we can safely assume this one will come at us from a different angle."

"It already has," Cho spoke up, suddenly. She instantly looked contrite for speaking out of turn and she gave an apologetic nod to her superior, who lifted her eyebrows and shook her head to indicate that no apology was necessary.

Misato ignored the brief wordless exchange, and glared at Maya.

"What does she mean?" she asked.

"This incursion only appears on the surface to be the same as last time," said Maya. "Last time, Iruel attacked head on, challenging us on raw processing speed alone. If we hadn't had Ritsuko's... I mean, Doctor Akagi's genius on hand last time, we would have been beaten down by sheer weight of numbers. That time, Iruel showed a degree of adaptation, but little forward planning, only reacting to our defences when things didn't go its way. This time is different. This time it's displayed tactical thinking."

"Tactical thinking?" queried Makoto, with a frown.

Maya nodded to Haruna, who stood and leaned over the table on which was displayed a simplified schematic of Disciple and its cores. She pointed at one of these cores in particular.

"Andrew," she stated, "was the key to its attack..."

The technical operator was interrupted as the door to Misato's office opened. Forster entered, with Daemon following behind.

"I was wondering when you were going to do me the courtesy of inviting me to this briefing," he told Misato without preamble. She rose from behind her desk, stepping out in front of the man.

"My apologies, general, but this is a technical issue. I didn't think it fell within your remit."

"I wouldn't call our base of operations coming under attack from an Angel a 'technical issue', would you?" he growled.

"Nevertheless, this attack won't be resolved by your soldiers shooting things," replied Misato, coolly.

Relations between the two commanding officers had improved since Forster had first arrived at the base, but they were far from on friendly terms. Forster was a representative of an outside power exerting influence over Neo Nerv's operations and Misato disliked that fact. It brought back bad memories of distrust, secrecy and ultimately the bloody attempted coup shortly before Shinji initiated third impact.

"And did you think about the possibility of another Angel taking advantage of us while the power was down?" returned Forster. "Parts of the powergrid are inoperative, sections of the base are cut off. We're at our weakest moment. An attack now could be catastrophic."

"I have every confidence in my security staff," said Misato. "Communications are yet to be disrupted, we have a security net in place. If an Angel were to show itself, we will counter it as we always do."

"With all due respect," said Forster, smiling grimly, "we have already been attacked by one Angel, and your so called 'security net' gave us no warning whatsoever. It won't look good in my report to the Secretary General – assuming we all live through this."

Misato bristled.

"We are countering the threat as we speak," she said in a dangerously low voice. "But if you wish to sit in on the briefing and offer whatever _insight_ you have, be my guest."

A tense air held between them as they stared one another down. Over Forster's shoulder, Misato could see Chiyoko, Mal and Sho ill at ease, glancing between the pair. She had taken them on as her personal special forces and bodyguards, but they still answered to Forster, ultimately. She briefly wondered where their loyalties would lie in a confrontation, then dismissed the thought. It wasn't really a difficult question to answer.

"Very well," said Forster, finally. "Then I wish to be informed of our current situation."

"Maya, bring the general up to speed."

She turned away from the man, returning to her seat behind the desk as Maya explained their situation to the general. She outlined the events of the morning, culminating in the shutting down of Andrew and the loss of power.

"But you've stopped the infection?" said Forster. Maya shook her head.

"We've slowed it. Delayed it. We've lost processing power, but so has the invader. The infection will continue to spread, but without instantaneous connectivity, its progress into other cores will be severely hampered."

"How did it spread so quickly in the first place?"

Maya nodded to Haruna, who stood up again.

"Who are these technicians?" asked Forster of Haruna and Shiro. "I don't think I've ever seen them before."

"They're my elite staff," replied Maya, "in much the same way as you have Daemon, general, Haruna and Shiro are _my_ specialists." Haruna stood straighter at this, in unconscious imitation of the members of Daemon standing at attention behind Forster, but Shiro merely glanced up and smiled, wanly. "They've undergone extensive training in hacking and counter-hacking, training specific to the Disciple system, although they both worked in similar fields before Third Impact."

Shiro cleared his throat, though he didn't look up from tapping on his laptop.

"Well... _I_ worked in similar fields," he put in, "Haruna pretty much did whatever she wanted."

Haruna glared at him.

"Idiot! You don't need to bring any of that up," she admonished him. Then she turned back to the general. "Andrew is in charge of the super fast connections and data transfer within Disciple. It's linked to everything, every single one of the cores. We lost control of Andrew almost as soon as the incursion began."

"But how could that happen without you noticing?"

"Nathanael," replied Maya, looking grim. "Nathanael was the first core attacked and it wasn't random chance that's what happened. Nathanael houses the majority of the verification programs that watch over Disciple. He checks the veracity of all outside commands, the decisions of Disciple as a whole... and even the data submitted for transmission to our monitors. Iruel must have altered some of those programs before it did anything else, manipulating what we saw of its incursion. The subsequent attack on Simon was simply a diversion to allow it to fully infect Andrew unmolested. And from there, it had unfettered access to all the cores via Andrew's high speed data links."

Letting the implications of this sink in, Maya looked around the room. Cho, Shiro and Haruna were fully aware of the significance and looked grim because of it. Forster and the members of Daemon weren't, and it was obvious in their uneasy looks. She saw Misato and Makoto glance at one another, some form of unspoken communication passing between them, though she didn't know what thought had linked their two minds for that brief moment. Frowning slightly, she stored it away for later consideration. In the end, it was Forster who gave voice to the question in the air.

"What does that all mean?"

"It means," said Maya, resting her hand on the table, "our enemy has insider knowledge about Disciple. It means it has learnt of our defences prior to launching its attack. It means Iruel was already on this base – and most likely has been for days, if not weeks, preparing its attack."

"Forward planning and tactical thinking," muttered Misato, curling her hands into fists on the surface of her desk.

Silence fell around the table, horror appearing on the faces of many of those present. Of all those in the room, only Sho Akagi appeared impassive, as unmoved after this revelation as he was before, or indeed ever was.

Forster, on the other hand, looked angry.

"So why didn't we detect it?" he growled. "Where was it hiding?"

Maya shrugged.

"A science terminal? One of the lab computers? It could have been stowing away in the vending machines for all I know. Iruel may be an angel, but in many ways it's simply more like data. There's no reason to expect data would produce a pattern blue or orange response for Disciple to lock on to. "

"But it did last time."

"It did while it was in Angel form," agreed Maya, "maybe its form this time was more diffuse before it became data. That might be why we had all those problems with the detection system for all those weeks and months. Perhaps Disciple knew there was an intruder on the base, but Iruel wasn't in a concentrated enough space for it to lock onto. I've said it before, but Disciple has nowhere near the power of the Magi system. It wasn't intended to supersede Doctor Akagi's work, merely supplement it and compensate for some of its inherent flaws."

Misato stood up.

"This is all very interesting, but we need to know how to fight this thing. With the knowledge you now have about this iteration of Iruel, can you go toe to toe with it, Maya?"

Maya chewed her lip.

"I... believe so," she replied. She looked across at Haruna and Shiro and saw they were both watching her. Each nodded at her in turn. Maya looked back at Misato, confidence reappearing on her face. "We still have a few tricks left, commander. Let us have another shot."

* * *

Rei looked ahead at Asuka as they crawled through the venting. With the goggles over her eyes, she could barely make out the form of the German girl in the darkness of the crawlspace. She wanted to take the goggles off, but Doctor Coulsen's stern warning that she could permanently damage her eyesight if she did still rang through her head, so she kept them on as they made their painstaking way through the facility.

Up ahead, Asuka was still fuming. She had been bubbling over since Misato had called Rei's room and told them to stay put, before sealing them in when Asuka had objected.

"Keep us locked in a room, will she? 'Keeping us safe', is it? More like keep us out of the way! I'll show her!"

Evidently, Misato's request that they stay where they were hadn't gone over well with the fiery redhead. Doubtless, Misato believed she was keeping them safe, but Asuka might have had a point when she stated they were just waiting around, defenceless, to be attacked by 'any Angel that might come along!'. That was why she had followed her when Asuka had removed the ceiling vent cover and hauled herself up from Rei's bed, pulling Rei up by the hands afterwards.

"Trust me," she had said. "I know what I'm doing!"

That had been almost two hours ago. In the darkness ahead, Asuka cursed the commander again.

Rei found herself smiling slightly. Asuka's antics hadn't used to amuse her, but having lived with her for a while, and having Asuka visit her religiously every day in hospital since she had been injured by Ramiel, she found herself looking forward more and more to her visits, and to her outbursts of bluster and bravado, and even her moments of vulnerability.

Asuka had cried at her bedside. It had happened when her eyes were still bandaged. The German didn't know that Rei knew, she certainly hadn't been able to see it happening at the time, but Rei had listened to her gentle sobbing, feigning sleep and trying to contain her disbelief. Asuka had been crying for her. The thought still sent thrills of amazement through her.

"You better not be looking, back there!" growled the German, making Rei smile wider. Rei could hardly not look if she didn't want to crash into Asuka's plugsuit clad behind whenever she stopped at a junction to ascertain the correct direction to take. It wasn't as if she could see much, anyway, it was so dark in the vent, with only the occasional wall mounted led light to provide any illumination or direction. Fortunately, Asuka had discovered an engineer's evacuation pack in a wall recess not far from the entrance to the vent which had contained a hand held torch and miniature tool set, as well as hard hats and a variety of other gear she had immediately discarded as useless. There was only one torch, though, and that, naturally, had to be in the hands of the leader. And that, naturally, was Asuka.

Naturally.

"Asuka..." She spoke the name almost without thinking.

The young German stopped.

"What is it Rei?"

"Can we..." Rei struggled to find the words, to formulate her request. She wanted them to be together more. She wanted to see Asuka more than she currently did, both at Nerv and at their shared home. The amount of time they had spent together since her injury only served to fuel that desire.

 _Misato said I loved her..._

But how to put that into words without having Asuka scoff at her? The idea of Asuka's dismissal, the potential for her rejection only served to make Rei more confused.

The object of her confusion turned around in the tight crawlspace, until they were face to face.

"Are you feeling sick?" she asked, suddenly attentive. "Are your injuries hurting?"

Rei's heart lifted at Asuka's concern for her. She shook her head and tried to go on.

"Asuka... I want..."

What did she want?

She wanted to feel warm and contented. But, more than that, she wanted _Asuka_ to feel warm and contented. She wanted _to be the one_ that made Asuka feel warm and contented.

But how could she articulate that without troubling the young German? How could she articulate that when she didn't even understand what it meant, herself?

"I want... us..." she struggled to find more words, but didn't find them forthcoming. But, suddenly, Asuka was turning away to hide a blush.

"We don't have time to talk about personal things, Rei. We're under attack, you know?"

"Yes," agreed Rei, unhappily.

"I seriously can't believe Misato would leave us like this!" said Asuka, crawling forward again. "I mean, come on! What does she expect us to do? Let her save the day all on her own?"

"Yes," agreed Rei, again.

"Yes, yes, is that all you can say?" fumed Asuka. "You really need to assert yourself more, Rei! Ah, where the hell are we even going!? I can't see a thing in here!"

She crashed a fist against the wall of the vent. There was a hissing sound and the panel there lit up.

"Oh," said Asuka. "That's not good."

The floor of the vent opened up and they both tumbled through with a cry of dismay.

* * *

Maya stood in the command room, bathed in the red light of the warning labels that covered all the screens. She stood with her arms crossed, surveying the scene as a general would survey a battlefield.

"I hope you know what you're doing," said Misato from her command chair behind her.

"So do I," replied Maya. "If Iruel takes over Disciple, it could do anything it likes to Nerv HQ: overload the terminals, switch off the air..."

"It's worse than just that," muttered Misato.

"What do you mean?" said Maya looking round.

Forster cleared his throat from his position observing at the back of the room.

"The Disciple supercomputer is hard-wired into the whole base, it can access all of it's functions. Self defence turrets, security checkpoints..."

"The auto-destruct sequence," finished Misato.

" _Auto-destruct...?_ " began Maya.

"We're humanity's last line of defence, just like the old days," said Misato, "and just like the old days, that's _our_ last line of defence."

"I never agreed to this!" exclaimed Maya. "Commander, when were you going to tell me about this self-destruct protocol?"

"When it became relevant," replied Misato. She shrugged. "It just did."

Maya stared at her for a few moments, then swung her gaze back to the main viewing screen.

"Well then, we'll have to stop it taking Disciple, won't we?"

The various technicians around the room began reporting readiness, Shiro and Haruna the last among them to do so.

"What are you going to do?" asked Misato. "You have a plan, I take it?"

"Of course," replied Maya, "but we'll adapt if things aren't going our way. That's why Disciple was created, after all: adaptability. Every core has its own speciality and capabilities. Iruel may have learned a few tricks, but it's going to have to become a full grown magician if it thinks it can take on the rest of Disciple and win."

"It has the use of several of your own cores," reminded Forster.

"That won't matter to Peter," said Haruna, from her seated position. There was a grin of anticipation on her face.

"Explain," demanded Misato. Maya looked around at her and Forster again.

"Not all of the cores are created equal. Peter is the rock on which the Disciple system is built. It contains the base code, and the majority of the computational power."

"So if Iruel starts getting too cocky," said Shiro, "we can use that rock to squash him."

"Then why not do that straight away?" growled Forster.

"Because it's not surgical," replied Maya, "Iruel is not like a simple organism, general. If you cut off its head, if you crush its body, it won't necessarily die. We could end up with lingering infections that end up plaguing us for the rest of time. The only way of defeating Iruel is to remove every part of it very carefully from our systems, then – and only then – we can squash it at it's source."

"But you still don't know what its source is," replied the general.

"Only a matter of time," replied Maya. "All manipulation of data leaves a trail. Something of Iruel's magnitude, doubly so."

"We're getting ahead of ourselves," said Misato.

"You're right, commander," replied Maya. She looked around at all of her staff. They all looked back expectantly, eyes bright and eager in the darkened command room. "Then let's do this."

* * *

"Well, I told you I knew what I was doing!" said Asuka, handing Rei her plugsuit. "It was never in doubt!"

The vent had dropped them, quite literally, into a storage room on the same floor as the hospital room Rei had been staying in. In fact, it was in the same suite of rooms. Two hours of crawling around in the ducts had brought them precisely one corridor away from where they had started.

Still, it had proved a fruitful journey. Rei's belongings were here, and so were two plugsuits, placed in storage for just such emergencies as an Angel attack while Rei was still hospitalised.

"Now we just need to find an auto-armourer," said Asuka, "and we'll be all set."

"I don't think Iruel is like the other Angels," said Rei, as she hit the button that evacuated the air from her suit, "the Eva-gear probably won't be much use..."

"Can't hurt to have it, though," replied Asuka, likewise hitting the button that made the plugsuit hug to the curves of her body. Rei caught herself watching, and turned away with a faint blush on her cheeks.

"Are you feeling okay?" asked Asuka, misreading the reaction to her new attire.

"Yes," said Rei. "I'm fine."

These things hadn't used to bother her.

"Now," said Asuka looking around. "We just need to get to Logos Alpha..."

She strode to the door and hit the release. Nothing happened.

"Uh, Asuka, the base is still on lockdown," murmured Rei. Asuka stood aghast.

"Well... what was the fucking point of all that!" she exclaimed furiously.

"We can still use the vents," suggested Rei.

"I've had it with vents!" said Asuka, pulling a rifle out of the storage locker. "Stand clear of that door."

* * *

The counter-attack began in a flurry of information, of quick gains and sudden losses, but then settled into a pattern of move and counter move, like a game of chess. Iruel still outclassed them by processing speed alone, but Maya and her team held the edge in terms of the raft of responses they could use. Responses she had specifically developed to combat an Angel of Iruel's make-up. With Andrew still offline, the going was much slower as each core challenged and counter challenged through the lower speed connections. Slowly, the red warning icons that washed the viewing screens changed to green and vanished.

"Have Peter hold the Zealot and bring the siblings against Nathanael, we need accurate unfiltered information if we're going to find Iruel's hiding place."

"Yes ma'am," said Haruna.

"The infection in Jude is still spreading," said Shiro, "Peter has beaten off the attack on his core."

"Good, have Thomas start cleansing Jude's subroutines," replied Maya. "Jude's the moral centre of Disciple, if we lose his ethics database, we can expect Iruel to start using the cores it still has a foothold in to do some pretty awful things to the base."

"Such as?" asked Misato.

"Turning off the air? Switching off the life support systems in the hospital wing?" said Maya, looking round. "Like I say, Jude is the conscience of Disciple. It evaluates all of the supercomputer's actions against a set of preprogrammed ethics and objects to anything that contravenes those ethics. You can be certain Iruel will get a lot more nasty if Jude is subverted."

"There's another infection spreading in James the Less," said Haruna.

"Bringing Philip's core to counter," said Shiro.

"This brings back memories, doesn't it?" Haruna called to him.

"Not pleasant ones for me," replied Shiro, steadily. "But then you never really worried too much about my feelings."

"Ah, admit it, you had fun," grinned Haruna. "You've never really felt alive since then. You're _melting_ inside at the chance to work with me, rather than against me for a change."

"And you're delusional," replied Shiro, though there was a smile on his face as he concentrated on his screen, his fingers flying over his keyboard. "You have no idea how much trouble you caused me back then."

Haruna pouted.

"Shut up, you two," said Maya. "No one wants to hear your life stories."

"Actually, I'm interested," said Misato, sitting forward, "I've been wondering where Maya dug you up since you first walked into my command room."

"I was a hacker," said Haruna, her fingers still flying as she fought off an intrusion into the Philip core, "hacked everything there was, even the Nerv database once. You had some pretty interesting things going on back then, commander."

"You don't know the half of it," replied Misato. "Who were you working for?"

"Anyone who'd give her a big enough pay cheque," replied Shiro.

"But mainly for myself," grinned Haruna. "It was fun, I liked playing around in other people's systems. Especially if they didn't think it was possible for anyone to get in. Shiro was the one who caught me in the end, though."

"How?" asked Misato. Haruna shrugged.

"I got cocky. I'd never been caught. When you feel invincible, you make mistakes. I made a mistake, I left a tag in a restricted system and Shiro followed it through."

The other computer expert glanced at his colleague before turning back to his keyboard.

"I'm a policeman... or at least I was. Counter-hacking and cybercrimes. I had to pick up the pieces every time Haruna was feeling 'playful'. Her escapades cost millions in corporate damages. I even had to go up against her directly on several occasions. You could say we have a lot of history."

"And now we're fighting together against an alien menace," said Haruna. "Isn't it romantic?"

"Like I say," Shiro looked up at Misato with a wry smile on his face, "delusional."

Cho suddenly spoke up.

"Chief, I'm tracking an unusual –"

A warning klaxon interrupted her and the screens filled with red once more.

"What happened?" asked Maya, striding to her console.

"I don't... We just lost one of the siblings. James."

"How?"

"I don't know, there was no path of attack that I can see, one second James was clean, the next..."

"The other sibling is turning on James," called Shiro. A look of horror was dawning on Haruna's face.

"James and Simon are reprogramming the second sibling. Access channels are being shut down. We're losing, I don't think we can beat Iruel back with our current access to Disciple."

"Secondary infection beginning in Jude," said Shiro, "Philip... Judas... Peter... we're losing access... projected loss of all of Disciples systems in one hour and fourteen minutes."

"It can't be," said Maya, leaning over her console and studying the flying data. "How is Iruel doing this? I don't see routes of attack... How do we stop it?" She looked desperately around the room. "Ideas... anyone?"

Cho turned in her seat.

"Chief, I... I think I have one."

* * *

The stream of bullets tore through the locking mechanism and the door juddered half open. Asuka wrenched it the rest of the way and then checked her rifle.

"I'm down to half a clip."

Rei looked at Asuka in the half-light of the corridor. They had just spent half an hour making laboured progress through the darkened base. The rifle was okay if they were breaking through doors that didn't deadlock, but they were trying to get to the command room, and every route they tried ended with a security door that they couldn't hope to break through. Asuka was gradually getting more and more frustrated, currently simmering below the surface, but looking like she might blow in the not too distant future.

"Everywhere we go, we're blocked by that damned Disciple being offline. All the stairwells are locked behind security doors, all the elevators are powered down. Even the vents are barred between floors. We'd need to get heavy duty cutting equipment to break through any one of them, but all that kind of junk would be in the engineering bays or garages and they're on the surface! If we could get up there, we wouldn't need the bloody equipment!"

"We could try the elevators?" suggested Rei. Asuka rounded on her.

"Didn't you hear what I just said? The elevators are powered..." Realisation hit her and her demeanour instantly changed. "The cables! We could climb up or down them, even if the car is blocking the shaft, the main elevators are a bank of four, we'd just exit one and climb into another! Rei, you're a genius!"

Rei blushed at the praise, but Asuka didn't see, she was already wheeling away and heading off in the direction of the main elevator shafts. The blue haired girl hurried to follow.

When she caught up, Asuka was already prying the door open on the first lift. She immediately set her hands into the gap and pulled the other door in the opposite direction. Eventually, the doors slid apart and stood agape, a black mouth with a seemingly bottomless throat.

Asuka stuck her head into the shaft and looked up, shining the torch. A single floor above, the car blocked their passage. There was no access door underneath they could climb through.

"Not this one, then," grumbled Asuka. She turned to the second set of doors and they again pulled them open.

Fifteen minutes later, Asuka hurled the torch to the floor, incensed.

" _All_ of them? Why the hell are _all_ of the cars one floor above? That can't just be random bad luck!"

Rei was inclined to agree. Was this something engineered by the latest Angel to deliberately stymie them? Likely it was an attempt to keep them confined. If so, why? Why would an entity with no real means of physical manifestation and no form except possibly within virtual environments need to keep them in one geographical location?

"Well screw this," said Asuka, "I'm not staying on this floor any more. If down is the only way to go forward, I'm going down. Maybe we can find Coulsen in Logos Omega and work out some other way of getting up to Logos Alpha."

She swung into the elevator shaft and grabbed onto the elevator cable. Clinging on, her body swaying backwards and forwards with the momentum of her leap, she looked back at Rei.

"Are you coming, or not?"

She wasn't sure it was a good idea, but she nodded anyway. Trust in Asuka was something that seemed to come easily these days. As Asuka began descending, hand over gloved hand, Rei picked up the torch and clipped it to her suit. Then she swung out into the elevator and grabbed the cable next to Asuka's and followed her down into the depths.

* * *

"It's certainly gutsy..." said Misato. "But won't giving Iruel another core just mean it's that much more difficult to fight the Angel off?"

She and the others were gathered around Cho's terminal, on which she had just outlined her plan.

"It's a sacrifice," nodded Cho, "but I think it's a gamble worth taking at this point." She looked up at Maya. The chief's face was inscrutable, but after a moment she nodded as well.

"I still don't understand... how will sacrificing Judas to Iruel help us?" asked Makoto.

"Judas is a special case," said Maya. "He isn't treated like an ordinary core. In fact his sole purpose is to challenge and attack the other cores."

"That's his function?" frowned Makoto. "How is that helpful to Disciple?"

"He's there to test Disciple's robustness. As far as Judas is concerned, he is a separate entity, covertly trying to bring the system down from within. But that's a deliberate feature. We built a series of hidden back routines into him that constantly feeds information to Peter to allow him to learn to better respond to similar attacks from the outside. Judas essentially is constantly betraying himself in order to help strengthen Disciple."

"So by giving Judas to Iruel, you're hoping he'll unwittingly betray the Angel in exactly the same way? Impressive!" whistled Makoto.

"I don't like it," said Forster. "If Iruel discovers or somehow knows about these hidden routines, you'll be giving it the additional processing power of another core for no appreciable gain."

"That's very unlikely," said Maya. "Only three people know about the full functions of Judas: Cho, myself and Misato. Iruel would have to have access to our personal files, or my programming notes, all of which are heavily encrypted, in order to learn of Judas's true function." She looked at Misato. "It should work."

The commander stared back at her with her arms folded. After a long moment, she nodded.

"Do it."

With renewed purpose, they all turned to their respective tasks.

* * *

As the slow losing battle against the Iruel's incursion into Disciple was continued by Shiro and Haruna, Cho Lau, overseen by Maya, put the finishing touches to their scheme. They couldn't be seen to be simply giving Judas to the Angel, for fear of potentially giving away their ploy. Thus, they had to make it look as though Judas was being sacrificed for tactical gains.

Misato sat in her command chair and watched as Maya directed Cho at her console.

"If this goes wrong, what are our next moves?" she asked the chief.

Maya straightened and looked hard at the commander, before glancing at Forster, who stood at the back of the command chamber, arms folded, still as a statue as he observed proceedings.

"If this goes wrong, then we may be running critically short of options. With only a few cores left uninfected, our ability to fight back will be severely restricted."

"At which point, we use Peter to squash Iruel. That's what you said, right?"

Maya chewed her lip and didn't answer for a moment.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not."

"What does that mean?" asked Misato, glaring at her chief.

"With all the secondary infections we keep getting..." Maya looked at Misato. "You can squash an ant with a rock... but a colony of ants? Iruel keeps finding new ways to attack us and we can't even follow some of them. Up until now, we've just about managed to keep ahead of it, but we're running out of options."

"What if you were to fight back with all the cores at once?" asked Misato, but Maya shook her head.

"That's too dangerous. I've purposefully tried to keep certain cores out of the firing line due to their sensitive nature. Jude would be one due to his ethics database, Nathanael would be another, which is probably why they have both been targeted by Iruel. Thomas has little offensive potential. Matthew is the most important, though. Matthew houses the collected knowledge of Disciple, and of Neo Nerv itself. It's a storage repository for everything Disciple learns and also for all of the security codes and protocols for the entire base, including Logos Omega. It has its own barriers that are intended to buy time as a last resort, but once they are breached... If Peter falls, losing Disciple becomes inevitable, but if Matthew falls, we're as good as dead."

"So if Iruel defeats Peter, we have to shut down Disciple?"

"It would be nice if that were still possible... in truth, we may no longer have that ability if it gets to the point that we lose Peter."

Misato looked across at Makoto, who nodded and stood up. Maya watched him cross the command room to a console near Misato's. He produced a key from a chain around his neck that had been concealed under his uniform and slid it into a slot in the console's surface. Misato similarly took a key from her uniform pocket and slid it into her own console.

"What are you doing?" asked Maya

"Our last resort that doesn't involve us all committing suicide," replied Misato. "If it comes to it, the commander and the lieutenant colonel have the authority to trigger a hidden contingency measure."

"Which is?" asked Maya suspiciously.

"The design of each room housing a core incorporates explosives to nullify Disciple should it become a danger to the base. The wiring for the trigger system is entirely isolated from all other systems on the base and only accessible through the command consoles in Logos Alpha."

Maya looked shocked.

"You never trusted my work from the beginning!"

"It isn't a matter of trust," replied Misato, grimly. "It's a matter of planning for every eventuality. This was a decision taken before you were even brought onto the base."

"Then why didn't you tell me about this contingency once I was here!?"

"This isn't the time to argue, Maya. We're under attack and close to losing. If you don't want us to have to destroy Disciple, you'd better beat Iruel back, and quickly."

Maya gritted her teeth, but nodded and turned back to the battle at hand.

The plan was simple, a two pronged attack by Philip and Judas, backed up by Peter, against the siblings James and John. An exchange of cores, Judas for either James or John, would be seen as an acceptable result, and good cover for Judas's infiltration of Iruel.

It took half an hour for the exchange to play out. At first, things appeared to go well. Even though both Philip and Judas couldn't stand up to the siblings attack protocols, Philip was able to divert them into sacrificial systems of little importance that waylaid them long enough for Judas to make a serious incursion into James. John came to his sibling's aid, quickly overpowering Judas, but Peter moved in and finished off the liberation of James. Judas was now in enemy hands and James immediately became locked in a battle of wills with John, and though Philip had expended much of its defensive data, the manoeuvre was apparently a complete success.

Maya watched her screens intently as the data from Judas's back routines began flowing into the command chamber.

"This is incredible..." she murmured. "I've never seen code like it. Each infection is apparently distinct from the others, but somehow they're able to remain in concert to some kind of central directive. Almost like a consciousness... Are we looking into the soul of an Angel in data form?" She looked up at Misato. "Doctor Coulsen needs to see this data, Commander. This could be the key to deciphering the Angels in their current form."

"Is it enough to start fighting back?" asked Misato.

"I think so," nodded Maya. "It's incredibly complex, but I think I see routes of attack that we can take."

"Good. Then do it."

Maya nodded and straightened. With a tight smile of satisfaction on her face, she took a breath. Before she could issue any instruction, her specialist gasped.

"Andrew's coming back online!" cried Haruna. Maya gaped.

"What?!"

"The core is powering back up! All infected super fast connections are back online!

Maya rushed to Haruna's terminal.

"How?"

"I don't know!"

"Multiple infections spreading from Andrew's connections!" shouted Shiro. "We're losing Nathanael, Philip, James the Less..."

"James has sided with his sibling," broke in Haruna. "We've lost both the sons!"

"Jude has fallen! Air filtration is cycling down!" continued Shiro.

Maya beat her fists on Haruna's console.

"Who do we have left?" she asked.

"Just Peter, Thomas and Matthew! They're not going to–"

"Peter's fallen! We've lost the base code! Matthew isn't protected! Iruel can deploy the bomb!"

"Cycle logic mode!

"No effect!"

Misato stood up.

"Maya, we have to shut down!"

"There's no time, Matthew's falling too fast!

At the back of the room, Forster turned sharply and signalled to Daemon. They then marched to the door. It steadfastly refused to open at his command, however.

"Misato, open this door," he growled.

"If it's not opening, that has nothing to do with me," replied Misato.

The lights in the command room failed, plunging them all into gloom lit only by static washed screens and scrolling data. A timer started up on the main viewer.

"Ten seconds!" yelled Shiro, somewhat unnecessarily. Maya whirled towards Misato.

"Commander! Blow the cores!" yelled Maya.

"The chain takes thirty seconds!" replied Makoto, "it won't be done in time!"

"Iruel's locked us out of the command protocols. Five seconds!"

Haruna turned to look at Shiro, her wide eyes shone with fear in the low light.

"Shiro..." she murmured.

Shiro reached across from his console and took her hand, squeezing it tight.

"Three... two..."

Misato slumped into her command chair and closed her eyes.

"One... zero..."

Shrio and Haruna shut their eyes tight, the girl grabbing on to Shiro and pulling him into a vice-like embrace.

Then nothing.

Nothing happened.

Cautiously Misato opened one eye. The timer on the screen said "00.00.14", and was holding steady, refusing to tick away the final fourteen milliseconds that would see the deployment of the bomb.

The commander sat up in her chair.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Shiro looked down at his monitor, where data was flying across it at an incredible rate, the look of incomprehension on his face changing to dawning realisation.

"It's Thomas," he said. Then he laughed. "Thomas has stopped the countdown!"

Maya strode over to his console, looking at the comparatively tiny screen, following the flow of data passing across it. Misato followed her.

"How?" asked the commander.

"He's objecting to the self destruct order..." breathed Maya.

"What does that mean?" asked Misato. Maya glanced up at her, then looked back at the screen, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

"Thomas performs an almost mirror function to Simon. Where Simon unthinkingly throws his weight behind the majority, Thomas doubts. He queries, he questions. His role is to make the other cores think differently, so all sides of a situation are given due consideration." She leant over Shiro's shoulder, reading what shouldn't have been possible on his screen with growing amazement. "Thomas is running a cycle of objections to Disciple's decision to self destruct... no, he's creating an evolving list, blocking every command from Peter with a query."

"How is that possible? I thought you said Matthew was the knowledge base for Disciple.

Maya laughed in disbelief.

"They're all nonsense! All of his queries. Iruel tells him to fall in line, Thomas responds with a nonsense question... like he's saying 'but, what if the sky is green?' to the directive 'begin self destruct.' Iruel is being forced to answer each one in turn in an attempt to pacify the final core! Disciple is following Thomas's lead!"

"How long will that hold the Angel?"

Maya shook her head.

"I don't know," she replied. "Minutes? Hours?" She looked at Misato and shrugged. "Seconds?"

"Great. So we could die at any moment and we won't know it's coming." Misato looked across at Makoto. "We have no way of fighting back against Iruel now the whole of Disciple is compromised. We should blow the cores."

"Wait! What if Iruel isn't just data?" said Cho. Everyone looked at her. Maya realised the look of a sudden epiphany and she crossed to her protege's side.

"You've got something, haven't you? Where are you going with this?" asked Maya. Cho looked nervously up at her mentor and direct superior.

"All of the other Angels we've re-encountered have taken on human forms and characteristics. Why wouldn't we at least _suspect_ the same of Iruel? But we've always dismissed anything other than this Angel being data..."

"Bring up a map of the base," snapped Maya. A three-dimensional technical map flashed up onto the main viewing screen. "Highlight the cores... number them in the order they were initially infected."

Maya leant forward on Cho's console, staring at the map.

"They're all over the base," said Cho.

"No," replied Maya, "Highlight the cores that we couldn't determine the route of attack and add timestamps, remove everything else from the list. Add in Andrew at the moment it came back online."

The cores blinked off the map, leaving only Nathanael, Simon, James and Andrew and suddenly it became clear.

"There's a geographical route through the base," gasped Misato. "It's using the corridors, vents and elevators."

"It's moving from place to place and infecting the cores physically," groaned Maya. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Then where is it now?" asked Misato.

"Andrew was the last core to be directly manipulated... His core is housed in the scientific sector."

"Inside Logos Omega..." said Makoto.

" _The Ibuki device,_ " whispered Cho. They stared at one another in horrified realisation.

"Find a way to get hold of Asuka," said Misato.

* * *

Coulsen cursed under her breath as the metal bar she was trying to pry the heavy door to the specimen room open sprang free, almost hitting her across the face before she flinched backwards to avoid it. The bar clattered to the floor, sliding into the deeper shadows in the corner of the entry way. In the dull red emergency lighting, it took a moment to locate the dull metal bar against the dull metal floor.

Two hours ago, the lights had gone off and Misato had called down to Coulsen to stay put until the angel incursion was dealt with. Well, that was all well and good, but she hadn't heard anything further in the following two hours and it was beginning to feel like she had been forgotten. If Disciple truly was under attack, and the relevant systems decided to shut of the air, she would suffocate without even having the chance to escape, or to link up with the others.

So she had come to the decision of trying to force the door.

The fact that the angels floating in their tanks, and the pool of inky blackness that was the Ibuki Device (that looked more and more like a mouth each passing minute), were creeping her out, only added impetus to her desire to escape.

She retrieved the sturdy bar of metal and set its end back into the groove between the two heavy sliding doors, leaning into it. The spar was from being used as a support in one of the scientist's experiments and was solid and strong, but even then, the metal creaked when Coulsen put her full weight against it. The door didn't even budge. After several moments of straining, she slumped over the bar, breathing heavily.

What were they doing up there? Were things going badly against this latest Angel offensive? If so, what could she hope to achieve by escaping Logos Omega? Did she really think she'd be able to make a difference against this latest Angel? Especially as its manifestation was so far outside her area of expertise...

On the other hand, she wasn't doing any good trapped here. And those tanks containing the Angels... She couldn't shake the feeling their occupants were watching her in some way.

As her breath stilled, she looked up and realised with a shock Ramiel was looking straight at her. The blue eyes still stared sightlessly out of the tank, but the Angels head was turned towards her and the change in position was unsettling enough to get her straining at the bar again with renewed determination bordering on panic. The next time she dared look, Ramiel's head was once more turned forward and angled slightly down, and she found couldn't truly say if it had moved at all.

With a final desperate shove, the bar sprang free once more, but this time the doors moved! They hissed smoothly open and, unbalanced, Coulsen staggered a few steps forward. There she found herself faced by a figure. She looked fearfully up into a pale, begoggled face...

The tall man in the technician's uniform looked down at her for a moment before raising a pistol. Coulsen yelped and fell backwards, scrambling across the floor away from the intruder.

"Who are you!?" she asked.

The man didn't answer and simply advanced into the room, whereupon he hit the door release and the heavy doors closed behind him. Coulsen suddenly realised the lighting in the room had returned to normal levels, but she couldn't say when that had happened. She scrambled away, rounding a bench and hiding behind it.

The man in dark tinted goggles seemed to ignore her and instead made his way over to a console connected to the Ibuki device. He placed a hand on its surface and Coulsen was amazed when the console reacted to his touch. It sparked and lit up, and suddenly the line that plunged into the depths of the Dirac Sea, the line that was connected to the case which had held Sandalphon, began to reel in.

"No!" cried Coulsen. "You can't! Sandalphon will burn the whole of Logos Omega!"

The man didn't even look at her, but the pistol whipped up with horrifying accuracy. Coulsen threw herself back behind the bench as the pistol fired and ricocheted off the floor next to her.

A shriek was growing from within the Dirac Sea. The man stepped away from the console, seeming to suddenly become unsure of his actions. Fire lapped at the edges of the black spot that was the barrier between dimensions.

Coulsen took the moment of the man's confusion to throw herself from her cover and charge recklessly into him. He reacted late and was barrelled to the floor by the doctor's wild tackle. The goggles were knocked askew on his head and for a moment Helen saw what lay beneath. The man had no eyes, only empty pits that contained impossible sparks of electricity, or energy, or _something..._

She tried to grapple with the man's wrists to wrest the gun away from him, but his skin burned her own and she recoiled in pain. This was no man.

It sat up and callously backhanded her across the face. She screamed in pain as his skin contacted her face and she was sent spinning to the floor. Then he was on his feet unnaturally quickly and aiming the pistol down at her.

She waited for the searing pain of the bullet, but at that moment, a grille in the roof was knocked free and clattered to the floor, distracting the Angel standing over her. Two forms dropped through the hole, landing neatly on the lab floor. One was bright red, the other white, with dark tinted goggles that mirrored those sported by the faux technician. Neither girl wore any more than their plug suits, but they were both armed.

The Angel spun towards them, but before it could fire, two rifles opened up, slicing into the technician's uniform and throwing the Angel against the tank that held Ramiel.

It was down, but not yet defeated, and from a kneeling position, it raised the pistol once more, aiming at the figure in red. Before it could fire, the room shook with a deep machine yowl of power and pain. Coulsen looked towards the Ibuki device, but Sandalphon was not the source of this cry of anger. The room washed with bright green light.

 _Unit 2.0!_ Coulsen realised. _It's started up again!_

Beyond its thick glass barrier, the working eye lenses were glowing bright green. It's mouth hung open and another yowl of anger shook Logos Omega, before a blinding bright beam of light smashed through the glass, straight into the begoggled man. An AT field briefly flared and died, then the parts of the Angel caught in the beam simply vanished. The beam struck the wall of the chamber and smashed straight through it in a flash of vaporising metal. Coulsen cried out and tried to shield her eyes and ears, but the beam blinked out of existence again and the scorched pieces of the Iruel that remained after its passage dropped to the floor.

* * *

Doctor Helen Coulsen, head of the Neo Nerv science team, became aware of hands shaking her. She looked groggily up into the panicked face of Asuka as the girl shook her hard. Her dazzled eyes showed the girl in hazy brush strokes of red and orange.

"Doctor! Get up! The Dirac Sea! Sandalphon is still coming through! You have to shut it down!"

"Shut it down..." her senses sharpened as the shock ebbed slightly. "No! If I shut it down, we'll lose access to that dimension forever! When we restart it, another dimension will superimpose the one holding Sandalphon! We'll never get it back!"

"It's too late for that!" yelled Asuka. "The Angel has already been born!"

Coulsen looked up in alarm. The room was still quaking and the black spot was ringed with fire. A shriek of alien awakening pummelled the room and its occupants. The temperature in Logos Omega had risen to that of a furnace.

"The console! Get me to the console, quickly!"

Asuka and Rei both took hold of the woman and hauled her upright, virtually carrying her to the console attached to the Ibuki device. With every step closer, the temperature seemed to climb by a degree. She began typing in the sequences to safely neutralize the Dirac Sea projected on the block of concrete. Even as she typed, clawed hands the colour of molten lava grasped at the edges of the hole and a hideously misshapen head, far too large for the body supporting it, pushed through into the real world. The heat in the room jumped another notch as another deafening shriek issued from Sandalphon. The huge head swung towards them, misplaced eyes, perfect circles of black in white regarded them. Then it began pulling itself from the hole. It looked like an embryo, but larger than a man, with spindly arms and legs that ended in oversized clawed feet and hands. Where it touched the concrete, rivulets of superheated stone flowed down its surface.

"Done!" cried Coulsen, and collapsed back in fear, trying to get away from the terrifying visage before her. A hand reached towards the three and at that moment the dark spot shrank and faded. A scream erupted from Sandalphon, who was still halfway through the hole as it closed. It's lower torso was effectively bisected between the two dimensions as the pathway between ceased to exist. A terrible scream. A death scream. The upper half of Sandalphon slumped, its fiery claws trailing to the floor and instantly cooling as whatever inner power source was snuffed out by its death. The rivulets of melted concrete stopped rolling down its surface and steam began to shroud the scene.

Asuka, Rei and Doctor Coulsen looked on in amazement at the dead Angel that was fused at the waist with the concrete block behind it.

* * *

 _Two Angels..._

Two Angels defeated in one afternoon. If it wasn't for that fact that killing Sandalphon had been very far from planned, or that Disciple had suffered catastrophic damage, or that Logos Omega had been breached and now sported a very fetching hole through one of its three metre thick walls, one might have said the day had been a resounding success.

And that didn't even take account of the mysterious reactivation of Unit 2.0...

Misato sat in her command chair, her chin resting on one hand as myriad technicians and scientists buzzed around Logos Alpha, recording data, repairing shorted wiring and chasing away any lingering infections that still affected the operational side of Nerv HQ's systems

Disciple had been shut down as a precaution, and Maya estimated it would be several weeks until it was running optimally again. Her chief technician hadn't appeared in the best state of mind, so Misato had dismissed Maya, with instructions to get a few hours rest before she even thought about tackling the mountain of new problems she faced. Makoto had followed the chief shortly after.

On the whole, though, Misato was satisfied. They had come close to annihilation, it was true, but Disciple had proved itself just robust enough to stave off utter defeat, and it had to be admitted, they now had two less Angels to worry about.

"Six down, ten to go..." she mused to herself.

Forster appeared through the main doors and moved to stand in front of the commander's chair.

"Are you here to congratulate me?" asked Misato, looking up at him.

"Far from it," growled Forster, completely missing the irony in Misato's voice. "Everything that happened today has been made note of."

"Has it?" replied Misato, evenly.

"It has indeed and I will be making my reports to the Kaibyaku Emergency Housing Committee and to the Secretary General himself. Rest assured, commander, I will be informing them that, however briefly, you surrendered control of Nerv HQ to an Angel."

"I hope you'll also mention that the most potent threat to Disciple has now been dispensed with? We can expect our supercomputer to remain unmolested by the remaining Angels now that Iruel is dead. We've effectively gained an extremely important piece in this game of chess, General."

"You assume the timetable for the dead sea scrolls still applies, Commander. That may yet prove to be a dangerous assumption."

Misato sighed.

"You're right, it may. You make whatever reports you deem necessary, General." She stood up, looking Forster dead in the eye. "But just remember: that's six Angels Neo Nerv has defeated now. Tell me again how many Angels you and the General Secretary have beaten?"

Forster clenched his jaw, but refused to rise to her bait. After a moment, he turned on his heel and marched from the command chamber. Misato watched him go.

 _I hope we don't end up on different sides of a war at some point in the future, General..._

She sighed again, then made her way to her office for a few moments of peace.

* * *

After being dismissed from Logos Alpha by Misato, Makoto immediately went in search of Maya. The chief hadn't looked in a good frame of mind after the encounter with Iruel. Professionally speaking, that was bad, but also on a personal level, Makoto wanted to make sure she was alright. They had been friends and colleagues for a long time, after all, and seeing her in mental turmoil disturbed him as well.

After a good long while searching, he finally found her. In truth, he probably should have guessed where she would be straight away...

Maya stood before the doorway leading to Thomas's core, her arms folded and her back resting against the far wall of the corridor that ran perpendicular to the entrance to core room. Makoto approached her, but when she saw him, she turned, making to move away from the lieutenant-colonel.

"Maya, wait," he called to her, jogging to catch up. She stopped, but didn't turn.

"What do you want, Makoto?" asked the chief. "I'm not in the mood to chat..."

"I just wanted to say good work."

Maya turned, an incredulous look on her face.

" _Good work_...?"

"Of course! If Disciple hadn't been so robust, we would never have lasted long enough for Asuka and Rei to find the Angel and defeat it."

"And what about Disciple? It'll take weeks, if not months to repair the damage done to it. It was supposed to be able to defeat an Angel all on its own! It was the whole point of creating it, and of me being here..."

"But we defeated the Angel," said Makoto. "That's all that matters. Disciple saved us."

Maya looked away, her teeth gritted.

"No," she said. "Not Disciple. Aoba saved us."

"Aoba?" asked Makoto in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Maya walked back to the door that passed into the chamber housing Thomas's core. 'The Doubter' was printed on the entrance in large red letters. She rested her hands on the paintwork.

"Do you remember how Ritsuko was with Magi? How she told us it was her mother's cloned brain matter that formed its organic centres?"

"Of course," frowned Makoto. "The three cores were supposed to form the three parts of Naoko-sensei's personality, one being the scientist, one the mother and one as Naoko as a woman."

Maya nodded.

"These cores work in much the same way, except the organic matter used in each core doesn't come from just one person, which is why it is so hard to get them to work together. I thought it would introduce more adaptability that way."

Makoto was frowning.

"Whose brain matter is used, then?"

Maya looked at him, directly.

"Ours," she stated. Makoto looked taken aback, but Maya continued. "Old Nerv kept DNA records and stem cell cultures for all of the staff on the base. The centres of each core are formed by each of the top ranking members of Old Nerv. Peter houses Misato's DNA, Asuka and Rei are the Sibling Sons of Thunder. I'm very much a part of Andrew, the Path. Gendo was Judas." She laughed. "Though I wasn't aware of the irony of that when I first designed the system."

"What about me," asked Makoto, trying to keep his unease in check.

"Simon the Zealot," replied Maya.

"Hah! Well, I don't know what exactly to make of that..." he said.

"You're steadfast and unwavering in support of Peter – of _Misato_ – of course," replied Maya. She looked back at where her hand rested on the painted letters, falling silent.

"And Thomas?" ventured Makoto.

"Thomas..." repeated Maya. "The doubter. The cynic. The one who didn't believe in anything. Who else could it be but Aoba. Bloody minded Aoba. That idiot saved us all."

She turned and walked away, leaving Makoto staring uneasily at the painted lettering on the wall by the entrance.

* * *

Kuro stood with his hands thrust into the pockets of his dark jacket as he waited on the corner of the street. His breath misted in the frosty night air as he waited, praying the girl would be along soon, if for no other reason than he could get out of the cold.

And there she was, stepping up the steps out of the subway. She would go to the bar she always went to and there she would nurse a single drink without ever taking a sip, alone on her barstool.

She moved down the pathway towards her regular bar and Kuro straightened, shrugging his shoulders against the cold, and followed her.

It played out exactly as he knew it would. She sat alone. She held a drink. Nothing much happened. Kuro was hoping that eventually someone would join her at the bar, someone he could cross reference, maybe even a former Nerv employee, but no one ever arrived.

He had her apartment under surveillance (if standing in the street and looking up at her window counted as surveillance) but no one ever joined her there, either. He had followed her in the mornings when she set off for work (she had never been to the courier company she had supposedly worked for, and when he checked the outfit out, they told him she had quit months ago), but always at some point along her journey he somehow lost her. Some days she didn't even return to her apartment.

Kuro was getting frustrated. With no way of discovering just what was going on, the endless repeat of events he observed while watching the girl was beginning to grate on him. With no other lead to go on, he was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he would have to take more direct action in events.

He watched her holding onto that glass and staring at its contents as if all of life's problems were contained within it. She wouldn't drink, she never did. Kuro didn't know exactly what was going through her mind at times like this, nor why she refused to drink, even after buying the glass of whisky. It was some kind of ritual that never changed.

She raised the glass to her lips. The movement actually startled Kuro, it was so unexpected. The amber liquid drained from the glass and she returned it to the surface of the bar with her eyes closed. Then she signalled to the barkeep for a replacement.

Kuro was moving before he realised it, threading his way across the bar to her side. Something had changed – that was all he knew – and now he was acting in response.

"Excuse me," he said, making Maya Ibuki look up in surprise. "Would you mind if I paid for that drink?"


End file.
